People
faculty
postdoctoral scholar
Dr. Vinay Rastogi
G45 Malone Hall, Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute[email protected]
Research Interests: Dr. Vinay Rastogi got his PhD from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, India, in 2018. His job in his PhD was to design and characterize the confinement geometry target assemblies for Laser shock experiments. He was also involved in the design and development of the time-resolved Raman spectroscopy facility at BARC. His PhD research involved the study of molecular level changes in polymeric materials under shock compression such as phase transitions and chemical reactions etc. using time-resolved Raman spectroscopy. His current research at Johns Hopkins University is focused on the phase diagram studies of different materials under dynamic compression. He is interested in such experiments here to understand the kinetics of diffusion, phase transformations and their rate dependence under extreme conditions.
Dr. Melissa Sims
NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Olin Hall[email protected]
Research Interests: Dr. Melissa Sims completed bachelors degrees in physics and geophysics from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina. Her PhD is from Stony Brook University. It involved research examining compression-rate effects on deformation and phase nucleation for minerals commonly found in meteorites.
graduate
Tyler Perez
[email protected]Research Interests: I seek to use and develop cutting edge laser-compression techniques in order to experimentally constrain important heat transport properties of Earth and other terrestrial planets.
Zixuan Ye
[email protected]Research Interests: To study the material properties, especially phase diagrams, thermodynamic and optical properties of planetary materials, using laser-induced shock compression.
Junellie Gonzalez Quiles
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
[email protected]Research Interests: I am interested in bridging the gap between astronomers, planetary scientists and geoscientists through the emerging field of exogeoscience, which considers the geological processes on an exoplanet’s atmosphere in order to be able to fully characterize these exoplanets
Gin Li
[email protected]research assistant
Anirudh Hari
[email protected]Research Interests: Anirudh graduated with a BS in Physics with honors from Johns Hopkins University in 2022, where he was treasurer for the Society of Physics Students and a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society. Using cutting-edge femtosecond X-ray diffraction, Anirudh is expanding our understanding of phase transitions and deformation in laser-compressed ionic materials. He mentors three high school students—Rohit, Wonjae and Isabel—with his main projects on aluminum oxide and lithium fluoride, training them to conduct science with curiosity and integrity. He recently submitted a first-author paper detailing the first in situ measurement of a phase transition in shock-compressed alumina, currently in review. He also works with PhD student Zixuan Ye and post-doc Melissa Sims to push the limits of X-ray diffraction interpretation at extreme conditions. As a researcher and teacher, Anirudh intends to lead the scientific community into new, uncharted areas of physics, materials science and planetary science.
Connor Krill
Research Interests: My research interests include building tools to make it easier to run hydrocode simulations, using optimization techniques to better understand experimental data, and exploring visualizations of laser compression data. Tools I've built to use the Hyades hydrocode can be found at https://github.com/WicksGroup/pyhy.
Kenny Hulpach
Teaching Assistant
[email protected]Research Interests: Mineralogy and Mineral Physics Pedagogy, planetary interior modelling
Patrick LaChapelle
[email protected]
high school
Rohit Hari
[email protected], [email protected]Research Interests: Rohit is a senior at Enloe High School in Raleigh, North Carolina with a deep interest in geology, chemistry and mineralogy. As a co-first author with Anirudh, he recently submitted a paper detailing the first in situ measurement of a phase transition in shock-compressed alumina, currently in review. He has also been involved in multiple projects characterizing transitions in sapphire, lithium fluoride and iron germanates. Rohit has been instrumental in keeping our lab technologically up to date, helping us navigate both hardware and software concerns. In 2021, he represented the United States at the International Earth Science Olympiad, where he won two gold medals. Since then, he has been helping to organize and mentor students for the US Earth Science Olympiad. Rohit hopes to continue to spread interest in earth science through mentorship and teaching.
Julio Gabriel Alumbro
[email protected]Research Interests: I'm interested in using computational modeling to study the evolution of planetary interiors.
Wonjae Suh
[email protected]Research Interests: Wonjae is a senior at River Hill High School who has an incredible obsession with rocks and minerals. He joined the Wicks Lab to explore and contribute to mineralogy, and has been working with Anirudh to identify deformational twinning in shock-compressed sapphire. He is currently writing a comprehensive textbook on introductory mineralogy to share this beautiful subject with those that might not yet have a chemistry or physics background. He was one of eight to be selected to represent the United States at the 2022 International Earth Science Olympiad, where he led his team to 1st place in the National Team Field Investigation and a gold medal in the Earth Systems Project. His dream is to become a famous mineral physicist, but he is open to the possibilities the future has in store.
alumni
Sharada Narayanan
undergraduate student
Elijah Jackson
high school student
Campbell Knobloch
undergraduate student, teaching assistant
Research Interests: Outreach programming, Science Writing pedagogy
Dr. Deepak Kumar
MSEE Research Fellow
[email protected]Research Interests: laser-matter interaction, energy transport, diagnostic development
