Davoudi Receives Prestigious PECASE Award

Zohreh Davoudi, an associate professor of physics and senior investigator in the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation, is among the nearly 400 scientists and engineers nationwide honored earlier this month by outgoing President Joe Biden for their exceptional potential for leadership and novel research undertaken early in their scientific careers.

Davoudi is the recipient of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on up-and-coming researchers.

“I am truly honored by this [PECASE] recognition,” Davoudi said. “I am excited to continue exploring the frontiers of nuclear physics and quantum information science using advanced classical- and quantum-computational methods and to continue building a community of amazing junior and senior collaborators who share the same or similar goals.”

Davoudi’s research focuses on strongly interacting quantum systems, investigating how elementary particles like quarks and gluons come together and form the matter that makes up our world.

Her work to understand the foundations of matter includes developing theoretical frameworks and applying cutting-edge tools like quantum simulation to studying problems in nuclear and high-energy physics. Ultimately, she hopes to describe the evolution of matter into steady states that occurred in the early universe and that happens at a smaller scale in the aftermath of high-energy particle collisions, like those in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.

In addition to her research, she is the associate director for education in RQS. She also has appointments in the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.