Dr. Chiara Decaroli
Articles
A brief history of ion traps (for quantum information processing)
Springtime has come for the field of quantum computing. Researchers around the globe are hard at work, governments are announcing large-scale projects and new facilities, while start-ups and companies are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. One of the promising technologies for the implementation of a useful quantum computer is trapped ions. But what are these ions? And how are they trapped? Here I will try to give a brief (and by no means exhaustive) history of ion traps, and their evolution across the years toward becoming one of the building blocks for quantum computers.
The early history
Our story begins in the Netherlands, in the 1930s. A young physicist named Frans Michel Penning had been conducting his doctoral research on the thermodynamics properties of gases. [...]
How to create an award-winning academic poster in simple steps!
In this article, we explore the importance of scientific communication for conference posters and look at some examples of posters. We will create a recipe to follow for creating a compelling and appealing scientific poster.
As scientists, we get to communicate our science very often, be it at conferences, meetings, or in the form of scientific papers, reports, book chapters and thesis. However, often a scientific education does not include any training in communication. It is simply a skill that we are expected to acquire on the job! Investing effort in communicating well will have tangible results for you: it will attract more people to your work, you will have the chance to discuss with a larger pool of scientists and expand your network and knowledge! I believe that communication skills are essential to any scientist.
What Covid19 can teach us about teaching - and learning - remotely
University-level teaching and learning has been turned upside down, here’s my experience.
Iam a bad virtual learner. I have signed up to countless online courses, only to devour the first few chapters, and then forget altogether I am even taking the course.
One of my favourite university experiences was to learn and study with my friends, debating each and every concept until all details were ironed out.
The interaction, usually in pairs or small groups, kept me motivated and engaged. Online courses, despite their best effort with improving engagement through online chats and forums, have not managed to motivate me nearly as much. As a result, my discipline quickly runs out and I quit the course. [...]
How to be happier — according to science!
A review of “The science of wellbeing”, a course taught by Laurie Santos at Yale University.
A couple of months ago one of my favourite thinkers and humans, Sam Harris, had a conversation on his podcast with a professor of Psychology at Yale University: Dr. Laurie Santos. She focuses on what we can learn from science about our happiness. The conversation, titled “The Science of Happiness” is linked below.
Needless to say, the conversation was very engaging and I found myself really looking for more after the podcast. I was in luck, Laurie, a professor at Yale University, had been delivering a course on the same subject: our wellbeing. The course, titled “The science of wellbeing” is ranked number one course for undergraduates at Yale since the first year it has been on the curriculum. When I heard that an undergraduate university was offering a course on how to be happier, I thought: “wow, this is really incredible! Shouldn’t all schools include this kind of knowledge taught at all levels, over and over again?”. [...]