We have maintained an active commitment to science outreach and education, with activities ranging from hands-on demonstrations of superconductivity to talks for middle- and high-school students and sustained mentoring through programs for young scientists. A central goal of these efforts is to make modern physics approachable without removing the ideas that make it interesting. Concepts such as quantum mechanics, superconductivity, topology, and magnetic monopoles can initially appear highly abstract. But with the right demonstrations and physical examples, they can become tangible questions: Why can an object levitate above a magnetic track? What makes a superconductor different from an ordinary conductor? How can quantum mechanics affect the materials around us? Can ideas from geometry and topology help us understand physical objects?

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The Magic of Superconductors: Levitating, Pinning, and Racing

 

   In 2025 and 2026, our group participated in the Johns Hopkins Physics Fair with the volunteer demonstration “The Magic of Superconductors: Levitating, Pinning, and Racing.” The activity introduces visitors to some of the most striking manifestations of superconductivity through direct observation.

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    Magnetic levitation is an immediate way to capture attention. The demonstration also provides an entry point to quantum physics. The audience can see how superconductivity changes a material's response to magnetic fields and how flux pinning can stabilize and constrain a superconductor above a magnetic track and "race" along the track. What initially looks almost like a magic trick becomes an opportunity to explain that the phenomenon follows from a remarkable collective quantum state of matter. 

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    These demonstrations engage audiences across a broad range of ages. A young visitor can appreciate the levitation immediately. While, students with more background can begin asking deeper questions about magnetic fields, quantum coherence, vortices, and the distinction between the Meissner effect and flux pinning. 

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Explaining Quantum Mechanics Through Everyday Experience

 

    Our outreach also emphasizes communicating quantum ideas through familiar language and imagery. In 2024, I spoke to middle- and high-school students at the Research in Science and Engineering Conference at Centennial High School in Ellicott City, Maryland. The talk, “Quantum Mechanics on Your Face,” connected an apparently remote subject of quantum mechanics to things students encounter in ordinary life. 

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Symmetry, Topology, and the Quantum World

 

    In 2023, I gave a talk for the Johns Hopkins Society of Physics Students entitled “Symmetry and Topology of Quantum Physics in Solids.” Symmetry and topology are among the most powerful organizing ideas in contemporary physics, but they can also be introduced intuitively. Symmetry asks what remains unchanged when a system is transformed; topology asks which properties remain unchanged under continuous deformation. Both provide ways of identifying structures that remain robust even when microscopic details vary. For undergraduate students beginning to encounter modern condensed matter physics, these ideas provide a bridge between foundational courses and current research. They show how concepts from mathematics become tools for classifying quantum states of matter and understanding why certain physical properties can be remarkably robust. The broader objective is not simply to explain a particular research result, but to show students how physicists think: looking for organizing principles that turn complicated phenomena into understandable structures.

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From Magnetic Monopoles to Condensed Matter

 

    In 2021, I spoke to the Johns Hopkins Society of Physics Students on “Monopoles in Condensed Matter Physics.” Magnetic monopoles have occupied a special place in theoretical physics for decades. Although an elementary magnetic monopole has not been observed as a fundamental particle, monopole-like structures and mathematical descriptions can emerge naturally in quantum materials. For students, this subject offers a useful example of how ideas migrate between different areas of physics. A concept developed in particle physics and field theory can reappear in the description of electrons in solids, where it can lead to new forms of quantum order and experimentally meaningful consequences. Such connections are an important part of our outreach philosophy. Modern physics is often divided into courses and subfields for practical reasons, but research frequently advances by recognizing that an idea developed in one field can illuminate a seemingly unrelated problem in another.

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Mentoring Young Scientists Through Women in Science and Engineering

 

     Outreach is not limited to one-time demonstrations or lectures. Long-term mentoring can have a different and often deeper impact by giving young students sustained exposure to scientific thinking and research culture. Our group has participated in the Johns Hopkins Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Program on multiple occasions. During 2022–2023, we advised Jasmine Ilyas-Grande, then a student at Western High School in Baltimore City. She subsequently entered Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate student in Fall 2023. Earlier, in Spring 2019, we advised Ciara Tang from Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills, Maryland.

These mentoring relationships allow students to see science from inside a university research environment. Beyond learning individual pieces of physics, students can ask what researchers actually do, how scientific questions are formulated, what undergraduate and graduate study look like, and how one develops from a student learning established knowledge into a researcher investigating questions whose answers are not yet known. That transition, from learning science to imagining oneself participating in science research, is one of the most important outcomes outreach can provide.

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