202 FRIB Graduate Brochure

Ania Kwiatkowski, PhD in Physics,
2011
Ania Kwiatkowski received her PhD in physics from
MSU in 2011. Her research at NSCL was under the
supervision of Georg Bollen at the Penning trap
mass spectrometry LEBIT facility. Her thesis work
included the high-precisions mass measurement of
32Si (silicon), which provided the most stringent test
of the Isobaric Multiplet Mass Equation at the time
and she added the new ion manipulation technique
called Stored Waveform Inverse Fourier Transform
ion excitation to the LEBIT portfolio.
As a graduate student at MSU, Ania brought
students together to engage them in activities
such as the Women and Minorities in the Physical
Sciences (WaMPS) program. She continued her
career as a postdoctoral researcher at TRIUMF,
Canada’s national particle accelerator center, at
its TITAN ion trap facility. She then accepted an
assistant professorship position at Texas A&M. Ania
is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria
in British Columbia. In 2018, the American Physical
Society awarded her Ania with the 2018 Stuart Jay
Freedman Award in Experimental Nuclear Physics.
The award recognizes outstanding early career
experimentalists in nuclear physics. She received the
award for “outstanding and innovative contributions
to precision mass measurements, commitment to
mentoring of young researchers, and leadership in
the low energy nuclear physics community.”
Zach Meisel, PhD in Nuclear Physics,
2015
Zach Meisel received a PhD in nuclear physics from MSU
in 2015. From 2008-2015, Zach was a research assistant
at NSCL where he studied the nuclear physics of extreme
stellar environments under the guidance of Hendrik
Schatz. Day-to-day work at NSCL included analyzing
data and developing components for an advanced
charged particle detector. For his thesis experiment, he
measured the mass of eighteen nuclei, seven of which
were measured for the first time, via the time-of-flight
method at NSCL. Zach’s thesis, “Extension of the Nuclear
Mass Surface for Neutron-rich Isotopes of Argon through
Iron,” won the 2015 MSU Physics Department Sherwood
K. Haynes Award for being the most outstanding graduate
student in physics or astrophysics. In 2015, Zach continued
postdoctoral research at the University of Notre Dame,
where his primary responsibilities were commissioning
and performing the first science experiments with the St.
George Recoil Separator. Zach currently is an associate
professor of physics and astronomy and director of the
Edwards Accelerator Laboratory at Ohio University,
working with the origin of the elements and the behavior
of matter at extreme densities and low temperatures. Zach
is also a member of the Institute of Nuclear and Particle
Physics, and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics.
In 2018, he received a U.S. Department of Energy Office
of Science Early Career Research Program award. Zach
has an active experimental program at NSCL and will
continue it at FRIB.
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