On 6/17/2021, graduate student Jackson Ang’ong’a successfully defended his thesis “Towards Synthetic Rydberg Lattices with Optical Tweezer Arrays.” Jackson broke the record for most attendees at a PhD defense, with, in my estimation, a hundred people in attendance at what was a terrific presentation.

A huge congrats to Dr. Jackson Ang’ong’a! He’ll be sorely missed, but we wish him the best as he moves on to exciting studies of trapped ions in Zurich!