Rate My Professor Mikkel Andersen

Associate Professor Mikkel Andersen is a physicist in the Department of Physics at the University of Otago. He received his MSc degree in physics with a minor in mathematics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, in 2000, and completed his PhD in Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in 2004. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. Following a research period at New York University, USA, he joined the University of Otago as a lecturer in 2007 and has since advanced to Associate Professor. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonics and Quantum Technologies, joining in 2015. His teaching responsibilities include Fundamentals of Physics I (PHSI 131), Classical and Quantum Mechanics (PHSI 221), Advanced Quantum Mechanics II (PHSI 424), and Experimental Physics II (PHSI 381).

Andersen's research focuses on experimental atomic physics, particularly atom manipulation and interferometry. His group employs laser light to individually manipulate and detect atoms using techniques such as optical tweezers and single-atom traps. They investigate quantum processes in few-atom systems, including collisional dynamics and pair correlations, and develop atom interferometers for high-precision measurements. Notable achievements include a ground-breaking experiment where researchers trapped three individual rubidium atoms cooled to a millionth of a Kelvin, observed molecule formation, and measured previously unseen interaction outcomes, published as "Direct Measurements of Collisional Dynamics in Cold Atom Triads" in Physical Review Letters (2020). Key publications also encompass "Counterdiabatic driving for random-gap Landau-Zener transitions" in Journal of Physics A (2026), "Applications of maximum likelihood estimations for analyzing photon counts in few-atom experiments" in Physical Review A (2025), and "Controlling individual atoms with optical tweezers" in SPIE Proceedings (2023). His work advances understanding of quantum phenomena and supports quantum technology development, with funding from Marsden Fund projects.