Interview with Ana Maria Rey, Professor Adjoint at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a fellow at NIST and JILA. Rey describes the nature of this tri-appointment, and she discusses some of the difficulties in keeping up her research during the pandemic. She recounts her childhood in Colombia and her early education in an all-girls school and her undergraduate education at the University of Los Andes in physics and the opportunities leading to her acceptance to the University of Maryland for graduate school. Rey describes joining Charles Clark’s group that was focused on modeling ultra-cold atoms, and she explains her initial work at NIST. She explains her decision to take an initial postdoctoral position at NIST before joining ITAMP at Harvard, where she focused on developing improved models to study the behavior of atoms trapped in crystals of light. Rey describes the opportunities that led to her appointments in Colorado, and her subsequent interests in metrology, the quantum advantage, and trapping molecules. She explains how it felt to be named a MacArthur Fellow and why it is important for her to interact with experimentalists in the quest to build better atomic clocks. Rey explains her efforts to create dark matter detectors and how she hopes that her work on quantum matter will help bring about quantum computers. She provides her perspective on how to advance diversity and inclusivity in the field, and she delineates her research interests as they pertain to basic science and applications. At the end of the interview, Rey conveys optimism that her research will make advances to the broader understanding of the quantum world.
