Asked once about the most difficult part of her research, Danna Freedman couldn’t help but refer to obstacles as opportunities and challenges as excitement. “Every time we hit a barrier it allows us to discover new science,” he told a Northwestern University interviewer in 2017, describing the difficulties encountered in his research as one of his most “rewarding” moments.
For Freedman, the FG Keyes Professor of Chemistry at MIT, focusing on a hard problem seems to be her idea of nirvana. His research group is currently using inorganic chemistry to create molecules for quantum information science, generating a new class of quantum units that can be easily tuned for quantum communication. But at any given time, his idea of a favorite breakthrough is usually the challenge at hand.
“I love the most recent result, what I’m struggling to understand and improve at a particular time,” says Freedman.
His determination and enthusiasm for the unsolved problem began when he was growing up in a small town in upstate New York, where he early on showed a keen interest in science and the questions scientists work to answer.
Freedman says his parents “patiently engaged in hours of conversation about how best to drop an egg an arbitrary number of stories without breaking it.”
“Unfortunately, I hear the bungee egg drop is no longer a Science Olympiad event,” he quips.
Referring to his most recent efforts, Freedman says his lab’s bottom-up design of molecules that can function as tunable, scalable, versatile and robust qubits is an important step toward the full realization of sensing and communication quantum These quantum operations could uncover new information about the world around us, detect dark matter, lead to insight into biological systems, or help transmit information across complex disordered interfaces in a quantum state.
“We developed a different approach to this goal,” says Freedman. “It will take a long, dedicated and interdisciplinary effort to bring these ideas to fruition, and I’m incredibly excited to make it happen.”
One of the ways Freedman and his lab work in cross-disciplinary collaboration is through the Q-NEXT National Quantum Information Science Research Center, which is run by the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. With support from Q-NEXT and others, Freedman and members of his team, as well as researchers from the University of Chicago and Columbia University, recently published a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society showing that a specific group of qubits, in this case molecules designed with a central chromium atom surrounded by four hydrocarbon molecules, could be customized for specific goals within quantum sensing and communication.
“As part of Q-NEXT and other research centers, we are bringing these molecules into the larger quantum ecosystem,” says Freedman, whose work has earned her many honors, including presidential career awards initial for scientists and engineers through the US Department of Defense. and the National Science Foundation.
Freedman’s lab also works by applying extreme pressure, sometimes comparable to the pressures in the Earth’s core, to synthesize new materials. His team is exploring one such material, the first binary iron-bismuth compound, for its magnetic properties and potential as a superconductor, both aspects of which could have broad ramifications in areas such as power generation and transport.
Freedman’s characteristic ambition also shines through in his teaching and mentoring. She says helping young researchers develop involves “giving them a foundation to excel and then throwing them in the deep end and asking them to swim.” But if they don’t get it, he says, “the foundation isn’t there, and I have to work harder and try different approaches to prepare them.”
With her determination to seek new and expanding challenges, Freedman came to MIT in 2021, having transferred from Northwestern University, where she was a professor of chemistry. He says the potential for collaboration at MIT boosted his motivation.
“I’m about 10 years into my career, and as our research expands in new directions, I wanted to build teams that would extend beyond my own research and connect in different directions,” says Freedman. “When I talked to the MIT faculty, every idea I had expanded and became more attainable. The visions of MIT scientists and engineers spur me to come up with better ideas and be a better scientist.”
She says that she is “energised by the Institute’s culture. I continue to be impressed with the kindness, dedication and fair-minded culture I’ve observed here. It’s up to me to keep improving it, but it’s a phenomenal starting point.”
And from this starting point, moving forward despite the obstacles is obvious. His great drive forward is perhaps also shown by his great love for walking and running, which he tries to do every day.
“In Boston, I’ve walked most of the train lines,” he says, adding that he also likes to run “from Harvard Square down North Harvard Street to Coolidge Corner to Chestnut Hill Depot and back for Commonwealth. I like to run from MIT to Chestnut Hill Reservoir and back…and to Belmont, run the Minuteman Trail.”
“While walking or running,” says Freedman, “I transform existing thoughts into coherent sentences, create conversations, and refine ideas.”