Ann Kallin wins alumni gold medal for MSc

The convocation ceremony on Saturday, October 22 saw the Department's own Ann Berlinsky Kallin awarded the University of Waterloo's Alumni Gold Medal for her MSc work. During two years under the supervision of Professor Melko, Ann published four papers with her advisor and other international collaborators, three of which appeared in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. Said Melko: "Ann's interests are unique because they straddle the boundary between condensed matter and quantum information theory. Her special approach, applying the development of new computational algorithms to measure entanglement in models of real materials, has allowed her to make a remarkable amount of headway in new physical directions in a short amount of time." Ann is continuing her PhD with Melko in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The last time a faculty of science student was awarded an Alumi Gold Medal at the graduate level was in 2005, when Physics student David Poulin (now a faculty member at the University of Sherbrooke) won for his PhD.