Anna Soper

Anna Soper is an experimental physicist designing unconventional optical cavities for the development of scalable cold atom-based quantum systems with strong atom-light interactions.

She is currently a first-year graduate student at Stanford University working with Professor Jonathan Simon to design a system of microcavity arrays that will enable the pursuit of new regimes for quantum networking, active quantum error correction, and quantum simulation. In addition to the Hertz Fellowship, she is also a recipient of the 2023 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.

Soper graduated in 2022 from Harvey Mudd College with a degree in mathematics and physics. In 2021, she received a Barry M. Goldwater scholarship for her work in computational materials science. At Harvey Mudd, she enjoyed serving as president of the college’s Women in Physics group, creating a community to support incoming students interested in physics and connecting them with research opportunities within the department.

Born and raised in Seattle, Soper loves skiing and hiking. She is also a classically trained musician and spends much of her free time playing viola in Stanford’s orchestra and chamber ensembles.