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New
Academic Staff Join the School of Physics in 2001
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 Dr
Michelle Simmons
Dr
Michelle Y. Simmons completed her PhD in the design and fabrication
of high efficiency solar cells in the Department of Applied
Physics at the University of Durham, UK. After her PhD she worked
in the Semiconductor Physics Group at the University of Cambridge,
UK where she was in charge of the design, fabrication and characterisation
of ultra-high quality quantum electronic devices. In 1999 she
came to Australia to take-up a QEII Fellowship in the fabrication
of novel quantum electronic devices. Since then she has become
the Director of the Atomic Fabrication Facility and a Program
Manager in the Special Research Centre for Quantum Computer
Technology at the University of New South Wales. Her current
research interests are to understand how quantum electronic
devices work as they become purer and smaller and to use this
knowledge to build the next generation of devices using quantum
principles – in particular a silicon-based quantum computer.
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 Dr
Alex Hamilton
Alex’s
expertise lies in the field of Experimental Condensed Matter
Physics, and in particular, the study of quantum effects in
nanometre scale electronic devices at ultra-low temperatures.
Alex obtained his PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge,
where he designed novel semiconductor heterostructures, processed
them into working devices in a semiconductor clean-room, and
performed low noise electrical measurements at milliKelvin
temperatures. In 1993 he was awarded an EPSRC Postdoctoral
Fellowship to develop innovative low-dimensional semiconductor
devices using a novel combination of focussed ion-beam processing
and molecular beam crystal growth. After six years postdoctoral
research he moved to Australia and joined the University of
New South Wales in June 1999, becoming manager of the Quantum
Measurement program when the Commonwealth Special Research
Centre for Quantum Computer Technology was founded in 2000.
Alex’s
research interests span a broad range of activities, from
Quantum Computing, through to the investigation of quantum
phase transitions in low-dimensional semiconductor structures,
and the development of polymer (plastic) electronic devices.
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 Dr
Maria Hunt
Maria
Hunt commenced at a lecturer in Physics at UNSW in March 2001
and from 2002 has become First Year Laboratory Director. She
came to UNSW from the University of Western Sydney, where she
had been managing the UWS Nepean Public Access Observatory.
Maria
enjoys both teaching and research, and rates physics and astronomy
education among her serious research interests. As she often
says, “I do astronomy education from the cradle to the
grave”, having conducted programs for both preschoolers
and for the University of the Third Age, and for almost everyone
else in between. Maria has a broad interest in the use of
the Internet in teaching as a means of increasing access to
tertiary education.
Maria
is equally enthusiastic about her research, which has the
linking theme of bioastronomy. She is an observational astronomer,
and is currently searching for bio-molecules in the interstellar
medium, investigating star formation in giant molecular clouds,
and searching for extra-solar planets. Her PhD is in millimetre-wave
molecular line astronomy, which was completed jointly with
UWS and the Australia Telescope National Facility of CSIRO.
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