Justin Caram receives $1.3M Moore Foundation Award – UCLA

Professor Justin Caram has been chosen by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as a member of the 2025 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. He joins 22 different mid-career researchers from across the nation, every receiving a five-year, $1.3 million grant to additional their analysis targets.

The initiative is designed to help new and imaginative initiatives that may advance the sector of physics. Caram’s analysis undertaking goals to design a chemical “cage” that protects embedded atomic transitions, opening up new potentialities within the improvement of superior quantum sensors.

Caram joined the Chemistry & Biochemistry college in July 2017. He at the moment serves as Vice Chair for Space Allocation. His group research molecules and supplies that work together with gentle in new and thrilling methods.

From the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announcement:

Justin Caram, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Vice Chair , Chemistry & Biochemistry , University of California, Los Angeles 

2025 Experimental Physics Investigator

Research Description
Some of the perfect sensors on the earth are derived from atomic vapor cells, floating atoms that are exquisitely delicate to exterior fields. However, their sensitivity is reaching exhausting bodily limits as a consequence of tradeoffs between quantity density, temperature and stress these cells can attain. Justin Caram is attempting to entry atomic properties in dense resolution section, to bypass these limits. He does this by utilizing the ‘atom-like’ optical transitions in lanthanide complexes to guard coherent quantum states, which could be ready, entangled and manipulated for the way forward for quantum sensing. This method combines instruments from resolution section spectroscopy, atomic physics, and chemical design in an effort to systematically develop and enhance lanthanide complexes for sensing.

Research Impact
Disordered liquids make it exhausting to create or detect quantum states. Dr. Caram is aiming to design a chemical “cage” to guard embedded atomic transitions and open up the huge area of novel quantum sensors.

Advancing discovery: 2025 Experimental Physics Investigators

The 2025 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators is a distinguished group of mid-career researchers pushing the boundaries of experimental physics. These 22 new investigators are becoming a member of the scientists from three previous cohorts in advancing the frontier of basic analysis in experimental physics. Regarding the magnitude and measurement of the award, 2024 investigator Shimon Kolkowitz remarked, “this is exactly what we needed to attempt our complex experiments, and it is especially important given the current uncertainties in federal funding in the United States.”

The Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative supplies $1.3 million over 5 years to present these scientists flexibility to speed up breakthroughs and strengthen the experimental physics group.

“We once again received proposals from amazing mid-career investigators who are taking their research to new levels,” stated Theodore Hodapp, program director for the initiative. “We are excited to see them join our existing cohorts of experimental physicists who are pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe.”

Among this 12 months’s investigators are:

• Howard Lee from University of California, Irvine who’s constructing the primary nanoscale accelerator able to producing high-energy electrons, with functions in plasma and particle physics in addition to biomedcine.
• Jaideep Taggart Singh from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University who’s growing an experimental platform to seek for time-reversal-violating forces, probably explaining why the universe comprises extra matter than antimatter.
• Adina Luican-Mayer from University of Illinois Chicago who’s finding out moiré-induced polarization in atomically skinny supplies, work that would uncover new phases of matter and allow ultra-compact, energy-efficient electronics.

Cultivating collaborative analysis environments that welcome all college students and promote extremely efficient analysis groups is a objective of the initiative. Awardees pursue this objective in several methods. For instance, Professor Singh will use a part of the funding to design distinctive trainings for college students on the intersection of various disciplines together with atomic, molecular, optical and nuclear physics.

“To connect investigators and promote the discovery of new ideas and synergistic collaborations, we bring all cohorts together each year in a relaxed setting,” remarked Catherine Mader, program officer for the initiative. “We have seen numerous new connections form and new research directions pursued by both individuals and groups based on conversations at these gatherings.”

Meet the 2025 Experimental Physics Investigators 

• Justin Caram, University of California Los Angeles
• Daniel Carney, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Jiun-Haw Chu, University of Washington, Seattle
• Riccardo Comin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Bryce Gadway, Pennsylvania State University
• Jeffrey Guasto, Tufts University
• Chen-Lung Hung, Purdue University
• Gyu-Boong Jo, Rice University
• Ben Jones, University of Texas Arlington
• Jason Kawasaki, University of Wisconsin
• Thomas Kempa, Johns Hopkins University
• Howard (Ho Wai) Lee, University of California Irvine
• Adina Luican-Mayer, University of Illinois Chicago
• David Patterson, University of California Santa Barbara
• Johannes Pollanen, Michigan State University
• Brad Ramshaw, Cornell University
• Alban Sauret, University of Maryland
• John Schaibley, University of Arizona
• Sufei Shi, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jaideep Singh, Michigan State University
• Sebastian Streichan, University of California Santa Barbara
• Andrea Young, University of California Santa Barbara

The basis is now accepting functions for the 2026 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. The deadline to use is October 14, 2025. Apply for the 2026 cohort.