Poul S. Jessen

Poul S. Jessen holds the position of Professor of Optical Sciences with a joint appointment in Physics at the University of Arizona. He is a founding member of the Center for Quantum Information and Control. He has done experimental research in the areas of optical lattices, quantum information, quantum chaos, and quantum optics.

Education
He received his BSc in physics and chemistry from University of Aarhus in 1987, and his PhD from University of Aarhus in 1993. While studying at Aarhus, a young Poul Jessen had the opportunity to travel to the United States and work with the group of Bill Phillips at the National Institute for Standards and Technology. While working at NIST, his original doctoral thesis adviser back at Aarhus retired. Bill Phillips took the place as his thesis adviser, although his degree came from Aarhus.

Career
In 1990 and 1992, he was a guest researcher at NIST; in 1993, he was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Maryland; from 1993–1998, he was an assistant professor at the University of Arizona; from 1998–2002, he was associate professor at the University of Arizona; and from 2002 to date, full professor at the University of Arizona.

Favorite Sayings
Poul is an active professor and mentor, and is noted for the advice he gives his graduate students. He often uses the phrase, "don't shoot yourself in the foot," to prevent students from settling on a poor solution to a given experimental problem. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," he says to deter students from discounting data. Another of his insights is that "bad cables are the bane of experimental physics."