Undergraduate Alumni Profile: Erin Sheridan

Dr. Erin Sheridan was an undergraduate student in the BC physics department from 2012-2016. From 2014-2016, she performed research in experimental condensed matter physics with Professor Ken Burch, where she investigated the excitonic behavior of two-dimensional materials. Upon graduation, Erin joined Professor Jeremy Levy’s group at the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied ultrafast nonlinear optics as a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow. She has also studied the philosophy of physics. After obtaining her PhD in 2021, she began working with the Quantum Information Sciences group at the Air Force Research Laboratory as a National Academy of Sciences postdoctoral fellow. Her current research focuses on quantum networking with superconducting, trapped ion and photonic qubits.

How do you reflect on your time as a physics undergraduate student at BC?

I grew up in a working-class family in a small town outside of Boston. In middle school I decided that I would do whatever I had to do to become a physicist, and eventually enrolled at BC as a physics and mathematics major. As a first-generation student, I faced many challenges adjusting to college life. Through my years at BC, the physics department was my home base. It was where I found a close-knit, supportive community to belong to. I could confide my struggles to faculty and staff in the department and they would encourage me to keep pushing forward.

Despite my love for physics, I was never a student that could easily get A’s on physics exams. I had to work really, really hard for B+ grades in my courses. I didn’t mind, because I loved it so much! However, when I stepped into Professor Ken Burch’s laboratory, physics came easily to me for the first time. I found that if I put the time into my experiments, I could excel as a scientist. I worked in the Burch lab during my sophomore, junior and senior years, and enjoyed my experience so much that I decided to pursue a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics.

By the time I graduated from BC, I was sad to leave my colleagues in the physics department. I have stayed in touch with my BC physics friends and always enjoy spending time with them at conferences. Looking back, I am grateful not only for my research experience, but for rigorous coursework that prepared me well for graduate level physics, a community that served as my first professional network, and for the confidence I was able to find in myself.

How did your experience at BC contribute to your current career?

Through my work with the Burch Lab, I gained research skills that I think were essential to my success in graduate school. For example, in addition to performing experiments, I worked with companies to install and maintain equipment. I also spent a lot of time in the clean room and fabrication facility, which left me with invaluable fabrication skills. Finally, I was able to present scientific results at conferences and collaborate with other research groups throughout Boston and the rest of the country. During my senior year, I traveled to Seattle to perform research with collaborators at the University of Washington. 

When it came time to plan for my future, Professor Burch and other professors in the physics department helped me apply to graduate schools and to the National Science Foundation GRF program. With their help, I gained admission to six PhD programs and was awarded an NSF fellowship in 2017. I believe I was admitted to these PhD programs in large part because of the network I was able to build through my research. I began my graduate research less than a week after graduating from BC, and my undergraduate experience enabled me to hit the ground running. I published three papers as a graduate student and prepared a fourth for submission.

My next step is postdoctoral research with the U.S. Air Force, where I’ll be focusing on quantum computing and quantum information science. I believe I was offered my position because of my strong research record and my scientific presentation skills, both of which I owe in large part to my experience at BC.