From The Faculty of Arts and Sciences
At
2.1.23
By Jim Shelton
Charles D. Brown II, quantum physicist.(Photo by Andrew Hurley)
The next time you’re at the public library, be sure to make a mental note of the kid at a nearby table soaking up a biography of Albert Einstein. That kid might be the next generation’s Charles D. Brown II, quantum physicist.
Brown, who joined Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics last month, fell under the spell of physics in middle school at his local library in Las Vegas, where he read about Einstein and his work in gravitational physics.
Brown would go on to earn an undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, a Ph.D. in physics from Yale in 2019, and conduct postdoctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley.
He received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2014, the D. Allan Bromley Fellowship for Graduate Research in Physics from Yale in 2017, the National Academies Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in 2018, co-founded the Yale League of Black Scientists, received a National Academies Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2020, was awarded the 2021 Quantum Creators Prize, and is one of the lead organizers of #BlackInPhysics week, an effort to recognize and promote the scientific accomplishments of Black physicists.
In an interview with Yale News, Brown discusses what sparked his curiosity about the universe, the scientific discovery that continues to amaze him, his own research into the exotic properties of quantum materials — and why his life as a scientist is so much more dynamic than he ever expected.
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What originally sparked your interest in science?
Charles Brown: As a young child, my mother instilled in me a deep curiosity about the universe. Even to this day, I cannot remember a time my mother wasn’t entranced by the presence of the moon, the ostensibly precarious position of Earth relative to the sun, the idea of our solar system zipping around the Milky Way galaxy, and thoughts on the existence of other Earth-like, life-harboring planets.
Although she was not a woman of great monetary wealth and not a scientist, she was rich with intellect and passion for learning about everything around her, especially science. Because she was my first teacher and mentor, I absorbed these qualities from her, placing extraordinary importance on learning and scientific inquiry.
Are there other scientists in your family?
Brown: No, I’m the only scientist, but there are many science enthusiasts in my family! In fact, I was the first in my extended family to earn an undergraduate degree.
When did you pick physics as your main field of study, and why?
Brown: As a child I had no Internet at home and was a frequent visitor of the local public library (support public libraries!). During my middle school years, I stumbled across books about Albert Einstein at the library and I became deeply fascinated by his work on gravitational physics and the emission of light from atoms.
After years of cannibalizing electronic devices around my house for scrap parts to build interesting things — much to my mother’s delight and chagrin — I settled on majoring in engineering in college but maintained a deep interest in physics. In college I quickly realized that, while I love building and designing things, I was most interested in how things work and why they are the way there are, so I switched to majoring in physics and found that experimental physics is right up my alley.
You’ve done innovative research with quantum simulations. Can you describe that work?
Brown: My work on quantum simulation involves constructing experiments that allow a relatively simple quantum system to emulate the behavior of a more complex quantum system. Let’s start with an analogy. Imagine an egg carton with marbles in it, with marbles hopping from bowl to bowl within the carton. Also imagine that when a new marble enters a bowl in which a marble is already resting, the two marbles bounce off each other. It turns out that this simple model can describe some intriguing properties that appear in the physics of real materials.
In materials, electrons hop around and bounce off each other. The details of that activity set many of the materials’ properties. In my work, I build arrangements of bowls made of light and study how extremely cold atoms hop around these bowls, which allows me to emulate aspects of real materials and to study the exotic quantum properties that emerge within these interacting quantum systems.
What scientific discovery has interested you the most in recent years?
Brown: While there have been several important and intriguing scientific discoveries in recent years, the one that continues to blow me away is the detection of gravitational waves, for which the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded. That incredibly massive black holes can travel at near light-speed before crashing into each other and emitting so much energy that ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself (gravitational waves) are launched into the universe, and that these ripples cause the length of everything to expand and contract, will never cease to amaze me. The more I think about it, the more I’m in awe of how incredible the universe is.
What area of research intrigues you the most going forward?
Brown: My research interests lie in the quantum mechanics of systems with many particles, as this physics relates to quantum materials (materials for which the uniquely quantum effects of coherence and entanglement are crucial to describe the material properties), and how concepts from mathematical topology and differential geometry play a role in the emergence of the exotic properties of quantum materials.
How is the life of a scientist different from what you envisioned as a student?
Brown: My life as a scientist is so much more wonderfully dynamic than I thought it would be. When I was a student, I thought that as a professional scientist I would be working on something in the laboratory all the time. But in actuality, I build experiments in the laboratory, I write code to control scientific instruments and collect and analyze data, I do long pen-and-paper physics calculations, I do numerical calculations with Python and Mathematica, I build 3D CAD models, I travel the world and discuss science with other scientists, I strategize and budget for laboratory operations, I mentor and teach students in my laboratory and beyond, and I write … a lot!
What are you most passionate about outside of the lab?
Brown: Outside of the lab I’m passionate about building a wonderful life with my wife; addressing equity issues in the academy, and building community among physicists, especially among those underrepresented in the physics discipline; being a good role model for younger people and my peers; and engaging the broader public with science to do my part to create a more informed and scientifically adept society.
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The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is home to 1000+ faculty and 40 departments and programs that span the divisions of Humanities, Social Science, and Science. Our work transforms the lives of our students and leads to fundamental discoveries that change understandings of the past and shape experiences of the future. Below, you will find news and stories of the impact of the FAS along with resources for FAS faculty and staff.
The mission of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is to preserve, advance, and transmit knowledge through inspiring research, teaching, and art.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) comprises the 40+ departments and programs that, along with the departments of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, provide instruction to the students of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, including the ladder, instructional, and research faculty members who hold primary or fully joint appointments in them. The FAS spans three broad intellectual areas, represented by the divisions of Humanities, Social Science, and Science. All members of the FAS faculty hold appointments in at least one of these divisions. Through joint appointments and other affiliations, many members of the FAS also carry out their work in Yale’s professional schools or in the West Campus institutes.
The FAS Dean, assisted by the academic deans, divisional deans, and administrative staff, oversees the activities and decisions that shape the quality of the faculty and the stature of the FAS departments, including faculty searches, recruitment, hiring, mentoring, promotions, retentions, and compensation. Additionally, the office oversees departmental staffing, budgeting, strategic planning, and policies and practices throughout the FAS.
The FAS Dean’s Office seeks to facilitate the outstanding accomplishments of the FAS faculty in their teaching, research, and contributions to the university community.
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The Collegiate School was renamed Yale College in 1718 to honor the school’s largest private benefactor for the first century of its existence, Elihu Yale. Yale University is consistently ranked as one of the top universities and is considered one of the most prestigious in the nation.
Chartered by Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale’s faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research.
Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school’s faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, Connecticut, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of June 2020, the university’s endowment was valued at $31.1 billion, the second largest of any educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Students compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League.
As of October 2020, 65 Nobel laureates, five Fields Medalists, four Abel Prize laureates, and three Turing award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U.S. Presidents, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 31 living billionaires, and many heads of state. Hundreds of members of Congress and many U.S. diplomats, 78 MacArthur Fellows, 252 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, and nine Mitchell Scholars have been affiliated with the university.
Research
Yale is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to the National Science Foundation , Yale spent $990 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 15th in the nation.
Yale’s faculty include 61 members of the National Academy of Sciences , 7 members of the National Academy of Engineering and 49 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of doctoral degree recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League.
Yale’s English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics, Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American deconstruction. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the Department of Comparative Literature from the late seventies to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called “Yale School”. These included Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and Harold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale’s history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians C. Vann Woodward and David Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale’s Music School and Department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The Journal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957; Allen Forte and David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.
In addition to eminent faculty members, Yale research relies heavily on the presence of roughly 1200 Postdocs from various national and international origin working in the multiple laboratories in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professional schools of the university. The university progressively recognized this working force with the recent creation of the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs and the Yale Postdoctoral Association.
Notable alumni
Over its history, Yale has produced many distinguished alumni in a variety of fields, ranging from the public to private sector. According to 2020 data, around 71% of undergraduates join the workforce, while the next largest majority of 16.6% go on to attend graduate or professional schools. Yale graduates have been recipients of 252 Rhodes Scholarships, 123 Marshall Scholarships, 67 Truman Scholarships, 21 Churchill Scholarships, and 9 Mitchell Scholarships. The university is also the second largest producer of Fulbright Scholars, with a total of 1,199 in its history and has produced 89 MacArthur Fellows. The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs ranked Yale fifth among research institutions producing the most 2020–2021 Fulbright Scholars. Additionally, 31 living billionaires are Yale alumni.
At Yale, one of the most popular undergraduate majors among Juniors and Seniors is political science, with many students going on to serve careers in government and politics. Former presidents who attended Yale for undergrad include William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush while former presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton attended Yale Law School. Former vice-president and influential antebellum era politician John C. Calhoun also graduated from Yale. Former world leaders include Italian prime minister Mario Monti, Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, German president Karl Carstens, Philippine president José Paciano Laurel, Latvian president Valdis Zatlers, Taiwanese premier Jiang Yi-huah, and Malawian president Peter Mutharika, among others. Prominent royals who graduated are Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, and Olympia Bonaparte, Princess Napoléon.
Yale alumni have had considerable presence in U.S. government in all three branches. On the U.S. Supreme Court, 19 justices have been Yale alumni, including current Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. Numerous Yale alumni have been U.S. Senators, including current Senators Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Ben Sasse, and Sheldon Whitehouse. Current and former cabinet members include Secretaries of State John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Cyrus Vance, and Dean Acheson; U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Robert Rubin, Nicholas F. Brady, Steven Mnuchin, and Janet Yellen; U.S. Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach, John Ashcroft, and Edward H. Levi; and many others. Peace Corps founder and American diplomat Sargent Shriver and public official and urban planner Robert Moses are Yale alumni.
Yale has produced numerous award-winning authors and influential writers, like Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Sinclair Lewis and Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Vincent Benét, Thornton Wilder, Doug Wright, and David McCullough. Academy Award winning actors, actresses, and directors include Jodie Foster, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Lupita Nyong’o, Oliver Stone, and Frances McDormand. Alumni from Yale have also made notable contributions to both music and the arts. Leading American composer from the 20th century Charles Ives, Broadway composer Cole Porter, Grammy award winner David Lang, and award-winning jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer all hail from Yale. Hugo Boss Prize winner Matthew Barney, famed American sculptor Richard Serra, President Barack Obama presidential portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, MacArthur Fellow and contemporary artist Sarah Sze, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and National Medal of Arts photorealist painter Chuck Close all graduated from Yale. Additional alumni include architect and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Maya Lin, Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, and Gateway Arch designer Eero Saarinen. Journalists and pundits include Dick Cavett, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Fareed Zakaria.
In business, Yale has had numerous alumni and former students go on to become founders of influential business, like William Boeing (Boeing, United Airlines), Briton Hadden and Henry Luce (Time Magazine), Stephen A. Schwarzman (Blackstone Group), Frederick W. Smith (FedEx), Juan Trippe (Pan Am), Harold Stanley (Morgan Stanley), Bing Gordon (Electronic Arts), and Ben Silbermann (Pinterest). Other business people from Yale include former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings Edward Lampert, former Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes, former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi, sports agent Donald Dell, and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton.
Yale alumni distinguished in academia include literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates, economists Irving Fischer, Mahbub ul Haq, and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Ernest Lawrence and Murray Gell-Mann; Fields Medalist John G. Thompson; Human Genome Project leader and National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins; brain surgery pioneer Harvey Cushing; pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper; influential mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs; National Women’s Hall of Fame inductee and biochemist Florence B. Seibert; Turing Award recipient Ron Rivest; inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Eli Whitney; Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate John B. Goodenough; lexicographer Noah Webster; and theologians Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold Niebuhr.
In the sporting arena, Yale alumni include baseball players Ron Darling and Craig Breslow and baseball executives Theo Epstein and George Weiss; football players Calvin Hill, Gary Fenick, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and “the Father of American Football” Walter Camp; ice hockey players Chris Higgins and Olympian Helen Resor; Olympic figure skaters Sarah Hughes and Nathan Chen; nine-time U.S. Squash men’s champion Julian Illingworth; Olympic swimmer Don Schollander; Olympic rowers Josh West and Rusty Wailes; Olympic sailor Stuart McNay; Olympic runner Frank Shorter; and others.
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