Dr Kali Wilson

Personal statement

Kali Wilson is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Strathclyde Chancellor’s Fellow in the Experimental Quantum Optics and Photonics Group of the Department of physics. Her current research uses superfluids of light and superfluids formed of ultracold atoms to address fundamental physics questions such as the mechanisms underlying turbulence, and cooperative behaviour in many-body quantum systems. Her research relies on bridging experimental techniques from the atomic physics, nonlinear optics and imaging communities.

Kali joined the Physics Department of the University of Strathclyde in 2021 on a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and is currently developing an ultra-cold atom experiment to study superfluid dynamics in quantum mixtures.

Prior to her work at Strathclyde, Kali studied physics at Wellesley College. She did her PhD in Optical Sciences in Brian Anderson’s group at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, studying vortex dynamics and quantum turbulence in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In 2015, Kali moved to Edinburgh to join Daniele Faccio’s group at Heriot–Watt University (the group has since moved to Glasgow University) to investigate photon fluids, i.e., superfluids of light, with applications to superfluidity, analogue gravity, and photon droplets. In 2018, she joined Simon Cornish’s group at Durham University, working on the CsYb ultracold atom experiment.  During her time in Durham, they demonstrated the first Cs-Yb dual Bose-Einstein condensates, which facilitate studies of beyond mean-field physics in ultracold atoms.