My name is Rees McNally and I am a scientist/engineer/math geek living in Boulder Colorado. I currently work as a staff scientist at Arete Associates in Longmont, a defense contractor that specializes in early stage R&D. In this role I have worked on a wide variety of projects including the development of novel remote sensing systems, and new ways of efficiently emulating complex physics models using nueral nets. What I enjoy most is coming up with new approaches to hard problems, and sometime they even work. In 2020 I completed my PhD under the guidance of professor Tanya Zelevinsky's , building a new machine to laser cool molecules, and proposing two ne techniques for the terrestrial detection of dark matter.
Before I joined Tanya's group, I worked on atomic clocks under the direction of professor Jun Ye at JILA, in the beautiful town of Boulder Colorado. While in Jun's group, I had the privilege to help build the most accurate clock ever made (as of 4/18/2017 anyways) and it was a really great introduction to precision measurements. This work has many applications, enabling GPS with unprecedented accuracy, and allowing direct measurements of local gravitational potentials (which would be very useful for geology/mineral exploration).
Prior to settling on atomic/molecular physics, I was lucky enough to work on a number of different projects. These included contributions to two satellites (one which Orbital Science Corporation dropped into the ocean, and one launched with SpaceX), as well as brief stint as an applied mathematician working on compressed sensing algorithms. While doing this I graduated from CU Boulder with bachelor degrees in engineering physics, applied mathematics, and a minor in electrical engineering.
If you have any questions about my research, or my award winning Chili-Mac Recipe please contact me anytime (reeslmcnally@gmail.com). If you are interested in working with me, please reach out, or take a look at my resume