My name is Reuben. I'm a physicist currently working as a postdoc at Georgia Tech in the Orlando "EPICS" lab, part of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
I am an informed liberal, somewhat progressive, and a recovering Libertarian.
I'm a multi-instrumentalist, which is to say that I own a lot of instruments and don't play any of them very well. I am probably in the 75th percentile in guitar playing, which I've done for something like 15 years.
Education: I have a Ph.D. and MS in Physics from University of California, Riverside (Dec. 2011). I received my BA in Physics from Claremont McKenna College (2003). In grad school I was a member of the Yarmoff surface science group. Research Interests: Surface science, especially surface electronic and physical structure, local work function and surface quantum states, incident ion beam neutralization probability, x-ray photoelectron and Auger electron spectroscopy, nanocluster formation, low-energy ion scattering. You can read my dissertation here.
In addition to my regular job, I run a website called IdolAnalytics, which is a look at American Idol through the lens of a scientist, using statistics to understand and predict trends. The site has gained some popular recognition. I only do this between January and May of any given year, and I don't want to talk about American Idol outside of those months.