Dr Sarah Scholten

Have you ever cursed your maps app when it can’t get a GPS signal, leaving you a bit lost?

The loss or interruption of a GPS signal is problematic for many industries, for reasons that go far beyond you getting momentarily turned around! By improving the underpinning technology of GPS satellites - atomic clocks - these issues could be a thing of the past.

I’m an experimental physicist, passionate about using lasers to better understand the world. I’m exploring how we can create better clocks, and in turn, a better version of GPS, so no one, not even you, gets lost again. The clocks I'm working on are leagues ahead in performance compared to the best commercially available solutions and are currently in development for launch into space.

I was awarded my PhD in Laser Physics from the University of Adelaide in 2019 and am an early career researcher at the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing. I am an avid proponent for science outreach, and aim to inspire more people - especially traditionally underrepresented groups - to engage with physics. After all - it's about time!