Katherine Aidala

Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Physics

Specialization
Condensed Matter Physics and Nanoscience

As an undergraduate at Yale University, Katherine Aidala was a double major in applied physics and psychology. She went on to graduate school in applied physics at Harvard where her thesis was on imaging electron motion in magnetic fields in a two-dimensional electron gas. This involved designing and constructing a cryogenic scanning probe microscope. Aidala continues to focus on scanning probe microscopy as a flexible technique to study a variety of nanoscale systems.

She is a recipient of the Cottrell College Science Award for beginning faculty members from Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement. Aidala's research has been published in Nature Physics, Physical Review Letters, and Nano Letters.

At Mount Holyoke, Aidala teaches Physics 216, a calculus based introduction to electricity and magnetism; Physics 308, Introduction to Analog Circuits; Physics 336, Advanced Quantum Mechanics; and Physics 211, Women and Gender in Science.