MIT students spend three months researching in cluster working groups

26 June 2024

Photo: PIER, M. Stange

Curious about everyday research in Hamburg (left to right): Emily Chen, Shreya Mogulothu, Yongao Hu, Sophie Vulpe, Bianca Hanley, Rashedul Islam.

As part of a collaboration between PIER and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, three MIT students have started their internship in a research group of the Cluster of Excellence “CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter”. Four students are working on projects in the Cluster of Excellence "Quantum Universe".

Bianca Hanley, Sophie Vulpe and Yongao Hu had to go through a demanding selection process at MIT and were finally assigned to the CUI working groups of Dr. Eric Hill, Prof. Jochen Küpper and Dr. Thore Posske with the help of PIER.

Hill is a Young Investigator Group Leader at the cluster and conducts research at the Department of Chemistry at Universität Hamburg on colloidal synthesis and self-organization for applications in the field of renewable energies. Jochen Küpper, Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Universität of Hamburg and lead scientist at DESY, specializes in the controlled imaging of molecules. Thore Posske is also a Young Investigator Group Leader and conducts research at the Department of Physics at Universität Hamburg. He is particularly interested in topologically robust phenomena in spin chains, anyons, and Majorana fermions, which can potentially be used for quantum computing.

The MIT students will now spend three months gaining insights into the cluster's pioneering research projects and carrying out their own small projects. They will be fully funded by CUI.

The students were selected via the MIT Germany program. The program, which was established in 1997, participates in the ‘Hamburg - MIT Cooperation: Trans-Atlantic Grand Challenges Research Network’, a cooperation between PIER and MIT founded in 2018. The internship program started in 2019 with seed funding from the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research, Equalities and Districts (BWFGB). Since then, eight highly motivated MIT students have completed internships in Hamburg research groups. With the help of the two Clusters of Excellence CUI and Quantum Universe, PIER is now continuing this successful international collaboration.