K-M Group
Kapteyn/Murnane group
Gallagher
Johnny grew up in Southeastern Massachusetts and graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Physics in 2024. As an undergraduate, he worked on projects in coherent diffractive imaging and tomography using synchrotron x-ray light sources. His current research interests focus on the applications of table-top extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray high harmonic sources for imaging and critical dimension metrology.
Phillips
Sarah is from Burlington, Vermont, where she attended the University of Vermont and graduated in 2025 in the Honors College with dual degrees in Physics and Mathematics. Her undergraduate honors thesis focused on the behavior of light in optical microcavities, specifically strongly coupled exciton-photon polaritons and their effect on cavity resonance.
Burton
Emma is originally from Portland, Oregon, and earned her bachelor’s degree from Goshen College in 2022. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on energy transport properties in perovskite materials at Worcester Polytechnic Institute under the mentorship of Dr. Lyubov Titova. She joined the KM Group in 2023, where her current work focuses on the development of high-power vacuum ultraviolet lasers for applications in precision metrology and spectroscopy.
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.