While Zach does come to work in the lab once in a while, he spends most of his time playing every sport he can find. He specializes in broomball, an ice sport similar to hockey, which he plays year-round (on indoor rinks during the summer; believe it or not, Minnesota does thaw for at least a couple months every year). During his broomball off-days he makes his way into the lab to mess with lasers or design ultra high-efficiency thin-film mirrors.
He is currently working on a project trying to design deformable mirrors with small wavefront aberrations despite inherent thickness errors in the layer profile of the mirror. He also actually does enjoy aligning optics, so if you ever need some help fiddling with mirror alignment give him a call!
