Former Members

Sam Keramati

Sam is a postdoctoral associate working for both the Gay group and Herman Batelaan’s research group at UNL. He is currently working on the Mott spin-polarimetry and the fermionic Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiments, using ultrashort pulsed free electron beams. His academic and vocational interests include various topics in and related to atomic, molecular, and optical physics, ultrafast lasers, ultrashort free electron physics and applications, and high-order matter-wave interferometry. Outside the lab, Sam enjoys pondering the ever-engaging subjects of the philosophical foundations of quantum physics and the philosophy of science as a whole. He takes interest in intriguing historical events, and also likes to get away to go hiking from time to time. Sam’s musical interests are wide, and include classical violin at one end of the musical spectrum to heavy, or thrash, metal music at the other.

Sam left the group in the Fall of 2021.

Karl Ahrendsen

Karl has been slowly traversing westward throughout his education, starting at the birthplace of the 4-H Emblem, Clarion, IA. He then traveled 90 miles west to Storm Lake, Iowa where he graduated from Buena Vista University with a BS in Computational Physics and Computer Science/Mathematics. He spends his time in the Gay Group wrangling with the Rubidium Spin Filter project. Karl chose physics because he liked to solve problems, and physics gave him far more tools to solve problems than any other discipline. At first, he was contemplating engineering, but when he learned that students got PAID to go to graduate school, he knew he could endure a few more years of school to solve some interesting problems. If one were to categorize Karl in a single word, it would be "hippie", but he likes to think that "hippie" only describes 80% of his personality. Yes- he has long hair, yes- he has a compost pile, yes- he has a couchsurfing profile, yes- he (mostly) eats vegetarian, and yes- he gives off endless effortlessly cool good vibes, but he also was a sports jock in a previous life, so he likes to regularly exercise and stay in shape. He breaks the hippie mold in this and many other ways.

Karl once traveled to China and had the opportunity to climb on top of the Great Wall of China under cover of night and sleep in a tent overnight to watch the sun rise the next morning. Since such an activity isn't necessarily endorsed by the Chinese government, Karl can neither confirm nor deny that he took advantage of this opportunity.

Karl graduated in the Summer of 2022

Kaley Wilcox

Kaley comes from the neighboring city of Omaha, Nebraska. She bagan her education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha where she had no clue what she would study. After a year, she transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. By this time, she knew that she had interest in most everything (which was not a helpful way to narrow down majors). Originally, English fit the bill. "Read the world", she thought. But this did not satisfy her curiosity. It wasn't enough to read the world. She had to interact with the world. Study the world. Split the wold into its most fundamental parts. Science was the key. Well, physics and French. Learning another language braodened the world. Learning physics broadened the universe. Kaley began research in high-energy physics before switching into the Gay Group to be more personally involved in table-top experiments. She contributes to an ellipsometry experiment in which she looks for an optical signature of chirality. She is also fixing up a dust Mott Polarimeter from the 80s which will one day be part of a mott scattering experiment. Outside of research, Kaley helped found the Women and Underrepresented Genders in the Sciences Club. If she's not on campus, she is usually in a coffee shop sketching and journaling or at home making art of some kind or playing with her cat.

Kaley graduated in the Spring of 2023.

Josh Stallbaumer

Josh, born in Tulsa, OK and raised in Omaha, NE, is pursuing degrees in both physics and mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Coming into college he intended to focus on the mathematics major, however, throughout his time at UNL he became more excited about the ideas in physics. He joined the Gay Group in the process of investigating and creating chiral samples of glucose to observe their piezoelectric effects, but also moonlights in two other research groups. Or is he moonlighting in the Gay Group? He'll never tell.

Outside of the Gay Group, Josh's interests include reading books, playing video games, and (just recently) learning Japanese. While in the Gay Group, Josh has been willfully bullied into learning chess by his colleagues and found a new hobby in trying to become better at chess. He also has a passion for music and theater ever since performing in choir and orchestra while in high school.

Josh graduated in the Fall of 2021.

Jesse Kruse

Jesse is a senior at UNL double majoring in physics and mathematics. He grew up in the small town of Hartington in northeast Nebraska, and from an early age he was fascinated by physics. Since joining the Gay group, he has built and tested a beam-splitting polarimeter for the rubidium spin filter experiment, he tested the effects of buffer gas on the rubidium absorption profile, and he is now working on revitalizing the near-threshold electron-noble gas collision experiment in the Gay lab. During the summer of 2019, Jesse participated in the University of Michigan REU at CERN characterizing photomultiplier tubes for the calorimeters and scintillators of the FASER detector system. FASER is an experiment designed to find dark matter candidate particles like dark photons, dark Higgs bosons, and axion-like particles. In addition to being passionate about physics, Jesse sings and beatboxes in the UNL acapella group Rocktavo, goes on long bike rides around Lincoln when the weather is nice, and plays Dungeons & Dragons with his nerdy friends.

Jesse graduated in the Spring 2020.

Ethan Gubbels

Ethan is a senior undergraduate physics major at the University. He grew up and attended school in the small town of Arlington, Nebraska where the cornfields were aplenty and the physics education was sparse. Despite this, he developed an aptitude for science and mathematics at an early age and wasted no time in exploring this strange new world of physics. After a brief stint where he considered pursuing a future career in engineering, he reluctantly made the life-altering decision of studying physics instead. He continues to be passionate about science education and artistic escapades, and is honored to be a member of the Gay Group. He served as the Gay Group Webmaster and designed this entire site.

Ethan graduated in the Spring of 2020.

Michael-Angelo Humm