Sierra Jubin grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, and received her undergraduate degree in physics from Williams College in 2017. She joined the Princeton Plasma Physics Program in the fall of that year, and wandered into the field of low temperature plasma physics.

Sierra spent her first year doing experimental research, building and characterizing a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) device, which operates in open air at atmospheric pressure. She has literally put her finger in a plasma, but has since retreated to the world of computational and theoretical low temperature plasma physics. She currently investigates beam physics with particle in cell (PIC) codes and plasma chemistry with molecular dynamics and approximate quantum codes based on density functional theory. 

When Sierra joined the plasma physics program there were only two other women - Laura Zhang from the 2016 cohort and Ge Dong from the 2013 cohort. She helped found the PWiPP group along with Laura Zhang, and they have been delighted to watch the organization’s membership increase by 250% within two years.

In her free time Sierra enjoys hiking, gardening, singing acapella, and marathoning LoTR and Star Wars movies. She misses the mountains, whether they be Rocky or Berkshire, but she has managed to find some nice hiking trails in New Jersey despite the flatter topography.