News and Events

Colder than Cold On the 5th and 6th of July the Jack Dodd Centre ran the "Colder than Cold" stand at the University of Otago Open Day for the New Zealand International Science Festival. In an endeavor to convey our fascination with the ultra-cold, the Jack Dodd team used liquid nitrogen to make ultra-creamy ice cream and demonstrate the interesting properties of cold objects. Photos and a reproduction of a related newspaper article can be found here. (Jul 08)

Graduate student symposium On the 24th of June the Jack Dodd Centre ran a graduate student symposium to highlight the centre research. The symposium was held in the Commerce building... find out more here. (Jun 08)

Paul Callaghan Presents.. Episode 5
Leading science communicator and internationally renowned physicist, Professor Paul Callaghan is on a mission -: to try to save New Zealand from a poor future. Episode five of his documentary features our very own Andrew Wilson. See the footage online here
(2008) 

The Jack Dodd Centre welcomes two new Research Fellows
Drs. Ashton Bradley and Callum McKenzie have joined the ultra-cold atom theory and experimental programmes at Otago. We welcome them here.
(Jun 08) 

2nd Dodd-Walls Symposium: Dunedin Feb. 11-12, 2008
The 2nd Annual Dodd-Walls Symposium was held on the 11th and 12th February 2008, at St Margaret's College, University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand
Special guests included:
Professor Allister Ferguson, University of Strathclyde, (Scotland).
Professor Ben Eggleton, Director, Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) (Australia).
Professor Robert Clark, Director, Centre for Quantum Computer Technology (Australia).
Professor Hans Bachor, Research Director, Australian Research Council Centre of Research Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics (ACQAO).
Dr Andrew Doherty, University of Queensland (Australia)
(Feb 08) 

The Jack Dodd Centre welcomes a new Research Fellow
Dr. Tzahi Grunzweig from Israel has joined Mikkel Andersen's experimental programme at Otago. We welcome him here.
(Nov 07) 

Dodd-Walls Symposium: Auckland Dec. 9-10 , 2006
The first official event of the Jack Dodd and Dan Walls Centre for Photonics and Ultra-Cold Atoms (Dodd Walls Centre) was a symposium held in Auckland. The symposium attracted participants mainly from New Zealand and Australia and featured Dr Charles Clark (NIST, USA) as the keynote speaker. The programme for this event can be found here.
(Dec 06) 

The Jack Dodd Centre farewells Dr Katharine Challis who graduated with her PhD in December. Katharine has made a huge contribution to the group during her PhD and as a lecturer over the past year. We wish Katharine best wishes for her post doctoral work in Durham.
(Dec 06) 

The Jack Dodd Centre for Photonics and Ultra Cold Atoms is officially open
With financial support from the University of Otago, the Ultra Cold Atoms Group has officially become the Jack Dodd Centre for Photonics and Ultra Cold Atoms. More information about this centre can be found here.
(Apr 06) 

The UCA group farewells Dr Tapio Simula who has returned to Finland. Over the period of 3 years that Tapio was with the UCA group he has made a fantastic contribution to the theory of vortices in ultra-cold Bose gases and done his best to endanger his life with every possible adventure activity available in New Zealand. Tapio's good nature and inspirational physics will be missed. Sadly the fish in New Zealand's river will hardly notice him leaving. (Feb 06)

The UCA group officially welcomes 4 visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellows, Wen-Xing Wang (China), Robin Scott (England), Francesco Buonsante (Italy), and Stephan Wildermuth (Germany)
(Dec 05) 

Nobel Prize winner, Professor Carl Wieman is visiting Otago from October 19th until October 21st. Professor Wieman will be giving two public talks in addition to a departmental seminar. Information regarding these talks can be found here. (Oct 05)

We'd like to congratulate UCA PhD students Alice Bezett and Adam Norrie for their recent successes. Alice was awarded a Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship (see the press release) and Adam won the 2005 Hatherton award from the Royal Society. The Hatherton award is for the best scientific paper by a PhD student at any New Zealand university in the Physical Sciences, Earth Sciences and Mathematical and Information Sciences. Congratulations to them both.
(Sep 05) 

Dr Warwick Bowen has officially joined the group.
(Aug 05) 

Nobel Prize winner, Professor Sir Anthony Leggett spent from July 19th until July 21st at Otago. See the Otago University Press Release here. (Jul 05)  [Photo: Craig Baxter, ODT]

It is our pleasure to announce that Professor Crispin Gardiner has been appointed as a research professor at the University of Otago. During the past decade Crispin has been based at Victoria University (Wellington) and has contributed strongly to the UCA group through his collaboration with Rob Ballagh. Crispin will be based in Dunedin from late June. (Jun 05)

We'd like to welcome Daniel Schumayer as a new postdoctoral fellow with the UCA group working with David Hutchinson. Daniel came from the Department of Theoretical Physics, at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary) and has a background in Bose-Einstein condensation, soliton solutions of nonlinear dynamical equations and inverse methods.
(Apr 05) 

The UCA group farewells Dr Niels Kaergaard and his partner Anne Cathrine who are returning to Denmark. Over the period of time Niels was with the UCA group he has made a fantastic contribution to the experiment and done his best to reduce the number of fish in New Zealand rivers. Both Niels and Anne Cathrine will be deeply missed and we wish them well in their future endevors. (Apr 05)

Work by the UCA theory group has been featured on the cover of Physical Review Letters. This work contains the first fully quantum simulations of elastic scattering occuring in colliding condensates.
(Feb 05)

The second Classical Field Day: On the 19th and 20th of January the group hosted a meeting on Classical Fields. See the programme here.
(Jan 05)

Work by the BEC experimental group has been featured on the cover of Physical Review Letters. The featured experiment demonstrated the first ultra cold atom collider.
(Oct 04)

Dr Murray Barrett's work with Dave Wineland's NIST group appears in articles published in Nature. In these experiments Murray provided the first demonstration of atom teleportation. (Jun 04)

Dr David Hutchinson is the first recipient of the Rowheath Trust Award and Carl Smith Medal. See here.
(Mar 04)

New Photos added see here.
(Feb 04)

Dr Andrew Wilson will be on research leave at JILA Colorado for 9 months beginning at the end of March 04.
(Feb 04)

Classical and Quantum Field Day: On the 16th and 17th of February the group hosted a conference on Classical and Quantum Fields. See the programme here.
(Feb 04)

Drs Murray Barrett and Blair Blakie have officially joined the group.
(Jan. 04)