[Perspective] Deborah S. Jin (1968–2016)
Deborah S. Jin was a world leader in ultracold gases and a pioneering intellectual in quantum systems consisting of strongly interacting particles. She spent much of her career as a U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicist at JILA (formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) in Boulder, Colorado, where she undertook a string of challenging experiments, including the creation of the first Fermi gas of atoms and the formation of a condensate of paired fermions. She imbued all that she worked on with a sense of scientific vision, creativity, detail-oriented excellence, and old-fashioned hard work. Jin died of cancer on 15 September 2016 at the age of 47, a loss that leaves a void in the scientific community and is, for so many, the untimely loss of a colleague and friend. Authors: Cindy Regal, Jun Ye