The Loomis Confessions: Elizabeth Goldschmidt
These interview questions are inspired by the "confession album," a Victorian parlor game. It later became known as the Proust questionnaire after French writer Marcel Proust’s thoughtful and witty answers were discovered and published in the French literary journal Les Cahiers du Mois in 1924. We have named our “album” for Wheeler Loomis, Illinois Physics department head from 1929 to 1957. Loomis is revered for having hired the highest caliber early-career scientists and for diligently nurturing them, expanding the department’s research program and elevating it to world-class status, while putting special emphasis on good teaching. The collaborative, open-door “Urbana style of physics” emerged under Wheeler’s supportive and strategic leadership.
The Loomis Confessions: ELIZABETH GOLDSCHMIDT
If you couldn’t be a physicist, what career would you choose?
I would likely work in government or public policy in some form or another. I worked at a think tank before grad school and spent most of my career before coming to Illinois at various government labs. I have seen how important it is to have capable and knowledgeable people in science-policy roles, and also how interesting and complex the issues are that they tackle.
What is your favorite place?
I’m definitely a homebody, so it’s probably sitting on the couch with my partner, reading or watching TV.
What is the greatest scientific blunder in history?
I would say the failure to avoid or mitigate the unfolding effects of climate change. And importantly this was a failure of both science and the communication of science, which is often just as important.
Who is/are your favorite artist(s) in any medium—painters, composers, authors, filmmakers?
I am an avid reader. Recently I have been reading a lot of science fiction, a mix of older and newer stuff. So right now I would say Octavia E. Butler, N. K. Jemisin, Tade Thompson, Emily St. John Mandel, and probably more that I’m forgetting.
Who is/are your favorite hero(es) in life or in fiction?
Good scientific management is often overlooked but is absolutely vital to successful research. I was lucky to work under one of the great scientific managers at NIST in the late Katharine Gebbie. She knew how to bring the best out of the hundreds of technical staff in the physics laboratory, as exemplified by the four Nobel prizes awarded to NIST physicists during her tenure.
Who is/are the villain(s) you love to hate?
Elon Musk and the rest of the techbro CEOs.
What is your idea of happiness?
Figuring something out in the lab. It never gets old to solve a mystery that I’m presented with, whether it is unexpected data or noise from some unknown source. And I think that the stubbornness that drives me to figure these things out is part of what makes me a good scientist, even if the same stubbornness can be annoying for the people in my life outside the lab!
What is your idea of misery?
Group theory.
What quality do you most admire in others?
Honesty. I always appreciate it when people are straightforward with me, and little makes me angrier than someone trying to intentionally mislead me.
What scientific question do you hope will be answered in your lifetime?
What will the killer apps be for quantum computing and other quantum information technologies? I think it is broadly accepted in the quantum information community that quantum computers will have a major impact on the world, but we can’t quite predict the form that impact will take.