Denisse Córdova Carrizales '23 has been recognized with the 2023 LeRoy Apker Award for developing a new method to intercalate Li into thin films of indium tin oxide.
Denisse graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in physics with honors. After a year working on fusion energy policy and education, she will start a PhD at MIT's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. While at Harvard under the guidance of Prof. Julia Mundy, Denisse synthesized and characterized the transparent superconducting properties of Li-doped indium tin oxide. The synthesis of this transparent superconductor was enabled by the novel combination of two disparate yet established synthesis techniques: thin film sputtering and solution-phase chemistry. This work is currently under journal peer-review. Denisse is also an author for publications in Nature Physics, Nature Materials, and Physical Review Materials. Aside from her work at Harvard, she has worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory modeling the performance of different Hall thruster fuels, at Commonwealth Fusion Systems researching fusion device engineering, and at the Etscorn Observatory calculating the path of a near-Earth asteroid. Denisse is dedicated to diversity and inclusion in physics, founding Primus in Physics at Harvard for low-income, first-generation college students studying physics at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Denisse is a Jenard M. Gross Scholar, Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Scholar, Harvard Quantum Initiative Fellow, and Herchel Smith Fellow.