About Me

My name is Sarah Nichols. I was born in 1981 in Boston, but I grew up in central New Jersey. While at Hopewell Valley Central High School, I took classes in several sciences, but decided that physics was the most interesting. I majored in physics at Williams College, where I was first introduced to laser physics. I worked on a Ti:Sapph laser there, studying quantum wells and quantum dots as my senior thesis. I decided to attend Stony Brook for graduate school because the physics department has such a broad range of active research projects, and the AMO group is particularly strong. The work with optical tweezers is my third optics rotation project at Stony Brook - for a description of the other two, try my department web page.

When I'm not doing physics, I like to garden or go hiking with my husband.