Méabh Allen

I'm a condensed matter theory PhD candidate in Joel Moore's group at UC Berkeley. I'm interested in non-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics, quantum phase transitions, and topological phases of matter. I've been using field theory and tensor networks in recent works to study universal dynamical behaviour in critical spin systems.

I'm interested in these things for their own sake, and also for their applications in quantum computing and metrology. I am the recipient of the 2024 NSF Challenge Institute for Quantum Computation (CIQC) Seed Funding and the 2025 North American Google Fellowship in Quantum.

Outside of physics, I'm a lifelong equestrian, avid gardener, graceless yogi, and bookworm.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• J. Wei*, MILA*, J. Kemp*, C. Wang, Z. Wei, J. E. Moore, and N. Y. Yao, “Universality of shallow global quenches in critical spin chains,” Physical Review Letters 136, 180403 (2026).
• Y. Huang, J. D. Querales-Flores, S. W. Teitelbaum, J. Cao, T. Henighan, H. Liu, ..., MILA,..., S. Fahy, J. A. Sobota, and D. A. Reis, , “Ultrafast measurements of mode-specific deformation potentials of Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3,” Physical Review X, 134, 041050 (2023).
• J. A. Sobota, S. W. Teitelbaum, Y. Huang, J. D. Querales-Flores, R. Power, MILA, ..., S. Fahy, D. A. Reis, and Z.-X. Shen, “Influence of local symmetry on lattice dynamics coupled to topological surface states,” Physical Review B, 107, 014305 (2023).

Manuscripts in preparation

• MILA, G. L. Woolls, C. W. Wächtler, and J. E. Moore, “Multipartite entanglement under dissipative Kibble-Zurek dynamics in a critical spin chain”.
• MILA, J. Kemp, J. E. Moore, and B. Béri, “Conformal spectroscopy in SYK”.
• MILA, and Z. Wei, “2+1D holographic dual to shallow global quenches”.
• MILA, O. K. Diessel, and J. E. Moore, “Novel short-time universality for critical quenches in non-equilibrium phase transitions”.

Outreach and Teaching

• Student and Postdoc Leadership, NSF CIQC, 2023 - Present
• CIQC Delegate, NSF Quantum Showcase on Capitol Hill, Apr. 2024
• Graduate Student Instructor, Physics 141B, Spring 2024
• Graduate Student Instructor, Physics 7A, Fall 2023