Unleashing the potential of qubits, one molecule at a time
1 min read
Summary
Danna Freedman was inspired to enter chemistry after seeing an origami model representing the Fullerene molecule in a Harvard professor’s office.
She was persuaded to drop the class and instead delve deeper into the subject and earned a PhD at Berkeley and a postdoc at MIT, joining the Northwestern faculty before returning to MIT in 2021.
Her interest in the connection between molecular form and function led her to create novel molecules for potential use in quantum sensing, with their sensitivity to tiny changes in their environment making them ideal as ultra-precision sensors.
She is taking a “bottom-up” approach to their creation, devising molecules with the specific qualities required for different sensing operations, and her work is helping to develop new quantum technologies with potential uses in medical diagnostics, geolocation, and more.
She also stresses the need for quantum science to have a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach.