Terry Phang

Terry Phang

Honors Capstone Internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Hometown: Cumming, GA

Majors: Physics, Mathematics

College: Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Career goals: Earn a PhD in Physics. Conduct research at a national laboratory on magnetism and novel quantum materials at the interface of theory and experiment to potentiate applications in the basic energy sciences and quantum information science.

Class of 2022

*EL Scholarship Recipient

Terry completed a research internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Materials Science and Technology Division, where he performed spectroscopic analysis of quantum spin liquids and nanophotonic cavities.

"This experience has solidified my decision to pursue a career at a national lab and given me a clearer direction in terms of the type of research I would like to conduct and the research methodology I would like to employ as a future PhD student."

"Coming from a purely experimental background in my prior research experience, this internship was my first exposure to writing custom Python scripts to perform rigorous materials data analysis. I explored datasets acquired from two classes of materials called quantum spin liquids (QSL) and nanophotonic cavities, and developed Python frameworks to process and analyze them. My coding skills have improved tremendously.

Altogether, the lessons I learned from the internship have solidified my intentions to pursue graduate studies in quantum materials, and to ultimately seek employment as a researcher at a national lab."