Matt Schulz ’17 is a fifth-year PhD student at Princeton University studying physics with a specialty in quantum science and engineering. More specifically, Matt’s research involves studying electrons on the surface of superfluid liquid helium, which may form an ice-like crystal called a Wigner crystal. But how did time in the CBC Band of Brothers inspire a career in quantum physics?
Matt credits CBC’s emphasis on “creativity and the creative act” with helping him find his creative voice as a musician and a scientist.
“My time in the CBC band was the first time I felt free and skilled enough to think about how to use music as a means of expressing myself,” Matt said. The experience helped him apply “creative skills and thought process as a musician to a career as a scientist. Science, on a very fundamental level, is a form of creative expression using the rules of our universe to communicate facts about the truth in our universe.”
Matt’s passions for music and science and the characteristics of becoming a man for tomorrow continue to apply to his life, even as his 10-year reunion approaches. The Men for Tomorrow characteristic of being strengthened by intellect, “and creating and innovating in an ever-changing world is a useful metric to use when assessing the engineers, musicians, scientists, and thinkers of tomorrow.
Matt’s desire to find a group of people with similar interests continued after CBC. While studying physics and electrical engineering at Purdue University, he narrowed his focus to quantum science through research and involvement in the Society of Physics Students. Matt said, “This helped me to develop as a scientist in a community of people as passionate and interested in physics as I was, desiring to push the field forward into new and uncharted territory.”
His work at Princeton is fueled by “pure and uncomplicated awe and wonder of what is being done,” and he said his research path was driven by his mentor, Professor Steve Lyon, “who felt so passionate and intrinsically interested in the research beyond just publishing papers or getting results; he was in it for the love of the game.”
In passing on advice to current and future CBC students, he’d offer the following: “Success comes from a deliberate and intentional choice to prioritize something, something you truly believe is worth putting your whole mind, body, and spirit into, and to pursue it as hard as you can. This deliberate choice is what forms the foundation of discipline, which is truly the key to success.”