Judy Cha

Judy Cha is an American physicist and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. Her research considers 2D materials for next-generation technologies, including quantum computing and low-dissipation electronics.

Early life and education
Cha grew up in South Korea. She has said that she loved mathematics and science as a child. She was an undergraduate student in engineering physics at Simon Fraser University. She earned her doctorate at Cornell University, where she worked with David A Muller and developed nanoscale electron spectroscopies. Cha was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. She worked with Yi Cui on 2D materials, and became interested in topological systems. The topological systems developed by Cha can be used to control electron transport and spin.

Research and career
Cha joined the faculty at Yale University in 2013, where she was one of the first faculty appointed to the Energy Sciences Institute, and eventually made the Carol and Douglas Melamed Professor. She moved to Cornell University in 2022, where she built a laboratory that fabricates and characterise 2D nanomaterials. She is particularly interested in phase transformations and structure-property relationships in chalcogonides. She has developed new strategies to create superconducting and metallic nanowires, which hold promise for quantum computation, and in situ approaches for transmission electron microscopy.

Awards and honours

 * 2016 Yale Arthur Greer Memorial Prize
 * 2017 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Azrieli Global Scholar for Quantum Materials
 * 2018 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
 * 2019 Moore Foundation EPiQS Materials Synthesis Investigator Award

Personal life
Cha is married to Alex Kwan, a psychiatrist and Professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering.