Olivia Krohn
Jill Hruby Postdoctoral Fellow
Biography
Olivia Krohn is a Jill Hruby Postdoctoral Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories where she conducts research on inelastic collisions between molecules in crossed molecular beams. Her fellowship proposal outlined a technique to enhance collision energy resolution and quantum state control using quantum cascade lasers. She has worked with her fellowship mentor Dave Chandler to demonstrate this technique and utilize it for studies of rotational and vibrational energy transfer in crossed molecular beams with improved product imaging resolution and highly resolved collision energy.
Olivia earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Colorado Boulder and JILA in 2023 under the supervision of Heather Lewandowski, where her dissertation focused on cold ion-neutral reactions between trapped ions in Coulomb crystals. This dissertation won the American Physical Society Division of Chemical Physics Dissertation Award for 2025. Prior to her doctoral studies, she graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Physics from California State University, Fresno as a Dean’s Medalist Nominee and a Smittcamp Family Honors Scholar.
Education
| Ph.D. | Physics | University of Colorado Boulder (2023) |
| M.S. | Physics | University of Colorado Boulder (2020) |
| B.S. | Physics with Mathematics minor | California State University, Fresno (2017) |
Research Interests
- Vibrational and rotational energy transfer in gas-phase collisions
- Studies of molecular dynamics and reactivity at cold and ultracold temperatures
- Bimolecular inelastic collisions with quantum-state selective preparation of reactants
- Effects of reactant collision energy on outcomes of chemical dynamics
- Benchmarking potential energy surfaces with highly resolved experiments
- Improvement of velocity map ion imaging resolution
- Ion-neutral chemical reactions
Awards
| APS Justin Jankunas Doctoral Dissertation Award in Chemical Physics (2025) |
| Jill Hruby Postdoctoral Fellowship at Sandia National Labs (2024-Present) |
| National Academies NRC Research Associateship (2024, Declined) |
| Dynamics of Molecular Physics 2025 Conference Poster Prize (2025) |
Selected Publications
O. A. Krohn and David W. Chandler. “Utilizing Quantum Cascade Lasers for Ultranarrow Velocity Resolution and Quantum-State Selectivity in Molecular Beam Scattering and Spectroscopy.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 15.50 (2024): 12455-12463.
O. A. Krohn and H. J. Lewandowski. “Cold ion-molecule reactions in the extreme environment of a Coulomb crystal.” Journal of Physical Chemistry A 128, 10, 1737–1752. (2024)
O. A. Krohn, K. J. Catani, S. P. Sundar, J. Greenberg, G. da Silva and H. J. Lewandowski. “Reactions of Acetonitrile with Trapped, Translationally Cold Acetylene Cations.” Journal of Physical Chemistry A 127 (24), 5120-5128 (2023)
O. A. Krohn, K.J. Catani, H. J. Lewandowski “Formation of astrochemical relevant molecular ions: Reaction of translationally cold CCl+ with benzene in a linear ion trap.” Physical Review A 105 (2) L020801. (2022)
O. A. Krohn, K. J. Catani, J. Greenberg, S. P. Sundar, G. da Silva and H. J. Lewandowski. “Isotope-specific reactions of acetonitrile (CH3CN) with trapped, translationally cold CCl+.” Journal of Chemical Physics 154, 074305 (2021).
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