Career Connection at Duke: Beyond the PhD - Paths and Possibilities

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In this Career Connection, we welcome Dr. Emily Edwards and Dr. William Cody Burton, who will share their paths from graduate research on atoms to impactful careers in quantum science and beyond.

Emily earned her Ph.D. at UMD with Dr. Steven Rolston working on BEC with optical lattices. She later pursued a postdoc in trapped-ion quantum simulation with Dr. Chris Monroe at JQI in UMD. Emily went on to serve as Director of Communications and Outreach for JQI, then as Managing Director of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center. In 2024, she joined Duke as an Associate Research Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Duke Quantum Center.

Cody earned his Ph.D. from MIT, working with Nobel laureate Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle on ultracold atoms in optical lattices for quantum measurement and simulation. After graduate school, he shifted his focus to trapped ions, joining Quantinuum as a Senior Physicist. Since 2024, he has been the Principal Quantum Scientist at Oxford Ionics.

Join us in person at Duke or online for a conversation with our speakers about the many directions a Ph.D. in atomic, molecular, and optical physics can lead.