Executive Committee

Committee Member Biographies

Yuan Zhang, Past Chair

Yuan Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the Old Dominion University. Her research group utilizes low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and qPlus atomic force microscope (Q+AFM) to investigate materials electrical and mechanical properties at single atom/molecule level, and to perform molecular manipulations on surfaces for chemical reaction and novel materials properties. Yuan started serving in FECS Chair-line from 2023.

John Palmore, Chair

John Palmore Jr is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. His research group focuses on developing and testing numerical methods for simulating multiphase fluid flows. And the work applies this art to address engineering problems in the aerospace industry and in the environment. John joined the FECS committee as Chair-Elect in January 2024.

Daniel Marx, Chair-Elect

Daniel Marx is an early-career physicist working on the accelerator design of the future Electron-Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Originally from the UK, Daniel earned his MSci from Imperial College London in 2016. He then moved to Germany, where he conducted research in the Accelerator R&D group at DESY and received his doctorate in 2019 from the University of Hamburg. Daniel joined the FECS committee as Secretary in 2023 before moving over to the Chair-line in 2025.

Nicolette Muldrow, Treasurer

Nicolette Muldrow is a Nuclear Physicist at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory, Bettis location in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She earned her MS in Accelerator Physics at Illinois Tech in 2022 and her BS in Physics at Beloit College in 2018. Nicolette became the treasurer for FECS in 2024.

Linsey Rodenbach, Secretary

Linsey Rodenbach is an early-career experimental physicist working as an Application Scientist for Quantum Technologies with Zurich Instruments. Linsey received her PhD in Physics from Stanford University in 2023 for her research on applications of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in magnetic topological insulators to electrical metrology. As an Application Scientist Linsey uses her background to help researchers around the world tackle challenges in their quantum computing experiments and meet their scientific goals. Linsey joined the FECS committee as Secretary in 2025.

Xuan Chen, Councilor

Xuan Chen is a postdoc in particle physics at the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2021, and her research at Cornell focuses on developing the next-generation particle detector and search for dark matter with the data taken by the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Xuan has served as Council since 2022.

Franziska Treffert, Member-at-Large

Franziska Treffert is a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the HEDT group within the NIF & Photon Science division. Her work focuses on the development of laser-based secondary particle sources. She earned her PhD from Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany in 2023 working on the development of high repetition-rate laser-driven fast neutron sources based on fast replenishing target systems such as cryogenic and liquid jets. She is an active member of APS serving as an APS Career Mentoring Fellow and is involved in outreach activities (SAGE and Fun With Science) at LLNL. Franziska joined the FECS committee in 2025.

Vidushi Adlakha, Member-at-Large

Vidushi Adlakha is a postdoc at the STEM Education Innovation & Research Institute at Indiana University Indianapolis. She earned her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Houston in 2021. Her research examines how course structures in STEM disciplines impact students' collaborative experiences and beliefs about learning. This includes analyzing curriculum materials, activities, and grading policies to provide design principles for effective collaborative activities. She also investigates departmental support structures for women in STEM and their long-term interactions with these supports. Vidushi joined the FECS committee in 2025.

Kelly Luo, Member-at-Large

Kelly Luo is a Gabilan Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California (USC). Her ultrafast quantum opto-spintronics group at USC studies interactions between the quantum degrees of freedom in solid-state systems such as electron spins, photons, and magnons. She was previously a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow and Honorary Kavli Fellow at Cornell University after receiving her Ph.D. in Physics at the Ohio State University in 2019. Kelly Joined the FECS committee as Member-at-Large in 2024.

Ruchika Dhawan, Member-at-Large

Ruchika Dhawan is working as a Process Development Engineer for 300mm semiconductor fab at Texas Instruments Inc. She received her PhD in Applied Physics from University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) in 2022, where her research focused on Silicon based micro-thermoelectric materials for microelectronic application as power management and IC cooling. Prior to joining UTD, she was an Assistant Professor in the department of Physics and Electrical Engineering at Lovely Professional University, India for five years. Ruchika joined the FECS committee in 2024.

Xinyu Wang, Communications Officer

Xinyu is a postdoc at the University of Michigan. Before the current position, she was a postdoc at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She is interested in soft matter physics. Her research work includes but is not limited to active materials (liquid crystals and liquid crystal elastomers), mechanical metamaterials, and mechanical networks. Xinyu joined the FECS committee as Communications Officer in 2025.

Deniz Aybaş Tümtürk, International Affairs Officer

Deniz Aybaş Tümtürk is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Türkiye. Her research focuses on precision magnetometry, used for new particle searches such as axion dark matter and zero-field NMR measurements. Prior to joining Bilkent, she was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley for two years. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Boston University in 2021, where she was a Research Assistant in the Physics Department for seven years. Deniz joined the FECS committee in 2024.