Grand Challenges Scholar

Antony Georgiadis

Class year: 2023
Major: Optics
Challenge: Provide Energy from Fusion

Can you provide a short summary of your project?

My project included helping with various instruments used for making scientific measurements. I worked on Line-VISAR, which is a system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used for measuring the exploding shockfront of materials in high energy density experiments like fusion. Then my senior thesis was on making improvements to a physical scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope for testing wavefront phase retrieval algorithms which are used for alignment purposes.

Why did you want to address this particular challenge?

I wanted to address this particular challenge because making improvements to measurement systems can provide new opportunities for learning and enable systems that might not have been previously possible.

What was the most important takeaway or thing you learned through the course of the project?

I think the most important takeaway I've learned is how important it is to take pride in the little wins when working on a difficult project.

Now that you are graduating, what are your next steps?

I'm looking forward to starting work at a photonics startup that is developing photonic chips for measuring individual proteins in the Bay Area and continuing my education with a master’s at the Institute of Optics.