Tess Smidt

Submitted by:

Adrian Liu

General area of research:

Condensed matter theory with a tremendously heavy dose of machine learning

McGill courses:

Computational physics, condensed matter courses

Why you chose to feature this researcher:

Tess is an absolutely amazing human being and also someone who's a great role model for how being a physicist doesn't mean you have to become a physics machine that does nothing else. (She used to run a T-shirt business on the side, is an accomplished sailor, etc.) In her research she uses machine learning to solve hard problems in physics and chemistry. I guess her research also reflects her broad interests, and it's telling that even though all her degrees are in physics, she recently got offered faculty positions in bio-engineering or chemical engineering or something...I can't even keep track from UC Berkeley and electrical engineering and computer science from MIT (and she was shortlisted for a job in nuclear engineering too!). I also appreciate that she's just a great model for someone who's very human. She is not one of those whizz kids who was doing advanced coursework in high school or anything. I was her graduate TA when she was a first-year undergrad and she was a solid B+/A- student who found physics hard but put in the time and effort and ended up being incredibly successful. (Helped along by a fantastic undergrad research mentor, Janet Conrad....ahhh that's another name I should suggest for this series!)

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