Bloklab and PAS graduate student Mihirangi Medahinne was awarded a Donald M. and Janet C. Barnard Fellowship for her excellent dissertation research work, demonstrated leadership qualities and outreach activities. The prize is awarded yearly to recognize outstanding achievement by PhD students in engineering or the natural sciences at the University of Rochester. The fellowship provides a $3,000 stipend top-off of the student’s existing stipend, as well as a tuition award, and is for a one-year duration.
In her research, Mihirangi makes superconducting electrical circuits to study and control the quantum properties of individual microwave photons. In the Blok-lab, she pioneered the nanofabrication of high-quality microwave resonators made from Niobium on a silicon substrate. Last summer, Mihirangi was one of the mentors in the Rochester Research Experience for Highschool Students, where high-school students from Rochester get the opportunity to do research in university labs. “Mihirangi excells in her research and has a natural ability to convey her own enthusiasm for physics to others. I distinctly remember the sparkle in her and in the highschool students eyes when she showed them her samples through the microscope.” says Mihirangi’s supervisor prof. Machiel Blok.
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