10/1/2026 Lauren Laws
Illinois Physics Professor and IQUIST Director Elizabeth Goldschmidt has been named a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigator. She is one of 21 scientists selected to join the 2026 cohort, a distinguished group of mid-career researchers pushing the boundaries of experimental physics. Goldschmidt will receive $1.35 million over five years to assist in her research goals.
Written by Lauren Laws
Illinois Physics Professor and IQUIST Director Elizabeth Goldschmidt has been named a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigator. She is one of 21 scientists selected to join the 2026 cohort, a distinguished group of mid-career researchers pushing the boundaries of experimental physics.
The initiative, which is currently on its fifth cycle, was established to help the next generation of scientific leaders achieve remarkable physics insights and open new frontiers by providing funding for investigators to pursue exciting research goals and try new ideas. Goldschmidt will receive $1.35 million over five years to assist in her research goals.
Goldschmidt, an experimentalist in quantum optics and quantum information, is investigating solid-state photonic devices in which individual particles of light can influence one another without the need for intense beams of light. Her group plans to combine rare-earth atoms in solid crystals with low-loss nanophotonic structures that tightly confine light to leverage the much higher nonlinearities that can be achieved with coherent emitters compared to bulk materials.
“I’m incredibly grateful and excited for this opportunity to pursue a research path that is a new direction for me and for the field," said Goldschmidt. "The potential results we are targeting by combining integrated photonics, nonlinear optics, and quantum information could be truly transformative.”
This research could have broad impacts for quantum communication, sensing, and photonic information processing technologies as it may provide a new route to generating and controlling quantum light on a chip at much lower power than existing approaches, and for quantum optical signals in the single photon regime.
Experimental physics research like this is exactly what the initiative was designed to enable.
“With nearly 100 investigators now at work, we are seeing the range of bold, original science we hoped this Initiative would make possible," said Theodore Hodapp, Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative Program Director. "From the start, our aim has been to accelerate progress at the frontier of experimental physics by giving brilliant mid-career scientists the kind of flexible, sustained support that federal grants rarely can. That freedom lets them take on risky, high-reward experiments and follow ideas when research results lead them down new pathways.”
Goldschmidt will not only receive funding, but she will also have opportunities to connect with other investigators involved in the initiative. Members from every cohort are brought together each year to share ideas, spark new collaborations, and more.
"It is inspiring to witness the development of new scientific discoveries brought about by these awards," said Catherine Mader, program officer for the Initiative." Equally important is watching the community grow among the investigators: scientists at the same career stage who keep sparking new collaborations and lines of research they might never have explored without these interactions.”
Elizabeth Goldschmidt is an Illinois Grainger Engineering associate professor in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is also affiliated with the Materials Research Lab, the Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Lab, and the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute Hybrid Quantum Architectures and Networks. She is the Director of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center.