Lucille Sugarman

Lucille Sugarman is a rising junior at Wellesley College majoring in physics and a CREST Fellow in the DMQIS group. Her research focuses on understanding the nonlinear bifurcation response of Kinetic Inductance Phonon-Mediated (KIPM) detectors at high readout powers. Her work involves acquiring and analyzing microwave transmission data, implementing and validating the Swenson nonlinear resonator model, and developing computational tools to model and fit detector responses across the nonlinear regime. The bifurcation modeling code she has developed will be integrated into the group's existing fitting framework, enabling accurate characterization of KIPM resonators over the full range of operating powers. This expanded modeling capability will improve the interpretation of detector signals and allow researchers to extract more information from potential dark matter interactions recorded by KIPM devices.