Objective

I am an experimental physicist with a diverse educational background that includes electrical engineering, chemistry, and biology. I am seeking a challenging position in engineering and applied physics that would utilize my experimental, analytical, and multidisciplinary skills.

Education

Ph. D. Applied Physics, May 1998 University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Minor distributed in Electrical Engineering, Statistics, Medical Physics.
Thesis: "Cross Sections for Electron Excitation of Excited Atoms," directed by Professor Chun C. Lin.

B.A. Physics with High Honors, cum laude, June 1992 Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

Undergraduate Thesis: "Investigation of an Open Fabry-Perot cavity," directed by Professor John Walsh.

Skills

I am a flexible scientist with strong problem-solving skills, and I am able to adapt to new challenges both inside and outside of the laboratory. I possess the physical science knowledge, computational experience, and mathematical skills to attack a wide variety of physics and engineering problems.

Problem Solving

Strong analytical skills in visualizing and solving experimental physics and engineering problems.

Experience in design and construction of novel experimental apparatus.

Liberal arts education including numerous courses in math, engineering, economics, physical and organic chemistry, cellular biology and genetics.

Additional graduate coursework including semiconductor diode lasers and arrays, optical signal processing, imaging in medicine, digital signal processing, and statistical experimental design.

Experimental Expertise

Experimental atomic physics-thorough knowledge of quantum mechanics, statistical physics, electromagnetic theory, advanced mechanics, optics, lasers, and electronics.

Design and use of optical systems from the ultra-violet to the infrared - lenses, mirrors, prisms, polarization optics, fiber optics, diffraction gratings, nonlinear optics, visible and infrared detectors, and numerous other optical elements.

Design, programming and use of computerized data acquisition and control systems.

Programming in C, Pascal, and Fortran. Use of Windows, MacOS, and UNIX operating systems.

Design and construction of electron guns; energy and spatial analysis of charged particle beams.

Design and use of vacuum systems down to 10^-10 torr

Detailed knowledge of atomic collision physics of rare gases including metastable atoms and excimers.

Production and detection of metastable atomic species.

Direct current and microwave powered discharge plasmas.

Use and maintenance of Argon ion lasers, and single-mode actively-stabilized Ti:Sapphire lasers.

Construction and use of grating-stabilized, microwave-modulated diode lasers for spectroscopy, and atom trapping and cooling with magneto-optical traps.

Optical signal and image processing.

Use of mathematical analysis packages such as MATLAB and Mathematica.

Atomic and molecular spectroscopy, analysis of fluorescence, scattered and absorbed light.

Absolute calibration and precision measurements using optical detection systems.

Team work

Have worked as a member of a successful research group to help design and construct a variety of experimental physics projects, and have directed and overseen new graduate students.

Work Experience

Publications

"Electron impact excitation out of the metastable levels of argon into the 3p⁵4p J=3 level", John B Boffard, Garrett A Piech, Mark F Gehrke, Mark E Lagus, L W Anderson and Chun C Lin, Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 29 L795 (1996).

"Cross Sections for electron excitation out of the 2³S metastable level of He into higher triplet levels", Garrett A Piech, Mark E Lagus, L W Anderson and Chun C Lin, Physical Review A 55 2842 (1997).

"Electron excitation out of the 2³S metastable level of He into high-n triplet levels", Garrett A Piech, J Ethan Chilton, LW Anderson and Chun C. Lin, accepted by Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 31 859 (1998).

Recent Presentations

"Methods for production of metastable atom targets for electron excitation experiments" Gaseous Electronics Conference 1997.

"Comprehensive cross section results for electron-impact excitation out of the 2³S level of He" American Physical Society Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (DAMOP) meeting 1997.

"Absolute cross sections for electron impact excitation out of the metastable levels of Ar" DAMOP 1996.

References