Ishaan Patel, a rising University of Virginia fourth-year student, has joined the orbit of Astronaut Scholars.
NASA’s original Mercury 7 astronauts launched the program in 1984, and astronauts from Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle missions have since endorsed it, making it one of the largest merit-based monetary scholarships for college undergraduates studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“Receiving the Astronaut Scholarship allows me the chance to meet the most talented scholars in my age group through an event hosted by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in August,” Patel said.
For Patel, a dual major in biochemistry and physics with a minor in mathematics, condensed matter physics, the study of more tangible objects such as magnets and crystals, brings together his interests – without needing a 17-mile-long particle collider to get data.
“A tabletop apparatus will suffice most of the time,” Patel said. “Chemistry, especially my knowledge of inorganic chemistry, provides great context and intuition for systems that appear in condensed matter physics, as many times physical models that we are interested in solving contain metal ions and inorganic complexes.”
Patel, of Vienna, is currently working on a project with Jeffrey Teo, associate professor of theoretical condensed matter physics.
“We are examining a model for altermagnets in three dimensions,” Patel said. “Altermagnets are a new class of magnetic materials that had gone unnoticed until fairly recently and are thought to have applications in spintronics, a field which utilizes the spin of the electron to store information just as electronics use the electric charge of the electron.”
“Ishaan is one of the most interactive students I have taught,” Teo said. “He is not shy to ask questions and visited my office hours almost every week. He has started a research project with me recently, and he has been picking up quickly. Ishaan is smart, motivated and works well with others.”
