Accelerated Doctoral Program Gives Gabe Sorci Time to Study Time

A lifelong interest in physics and mathematics has led Gabe Sorci B.S. ’25 to become one of the first students in Stevens Institute of Technology’s Accelerated Doctoral Program. This initiative enables high-achieving undergraduate students to gain research experience and earn both a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in as little as seven years.

“Joining the accelerated program seemed like an obvious decision,” Sorci said, “because I loved the research group that I was working with, and having an opportunity to make the transition process to a doctoral program even more seamless and complete it in less than four years, rather than the typical five to seven years, made complete sense.” 

The Accelerated Doctoral Program is open to enrolled Stevens undergraduate students. It allows them to engage in rotational summer research groups, prepare for the Ph.D. program qualifying exam and, during their third and fourth undergraduate years, complete up to nine research credits that also count toward their doctoral degree. 

Studying time is only the beginning

During his second year as a Stevens undergraduate, Sorci joined the quantum research group led by Igor Pikovski, professor in the Department of Physics.

“He knocked on my door, eager to do cutting-edge research, and I have been thoroughly impressed by his passion and dedication,” Pikovski said. “I look forward to continuing to explore with him the nature of time and how we can test it in novel ways with quantum technologies.”

Now in his third year of the accelerated program, Sorci is taking classes while focusing on an innovative physics research project. Still part of Pikovski’s lab, he is probing the interaction of Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the study of how atoms and electrons behave and interact.

“I’m excited to pioneer a path,” said Gabe Sorci ’25, one of the first students to participate in Stevens’ accelerated Ph.D. program, shown here presenting his work during the 2025 Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey Undergraduate Research Symposium at Nokia Bell Labs. Specifically, he is exploring ultracold clocks — timepieces that use charged, cooled atoms to precisely measure time — to understand how time can literally slow down when those tiny particles move very quickly. His research seeks to design experiments that show how Einstein’s relativity theories about gravity, time and speed mesh with existing theories of quantum movement. 

This line of research, uniting two of the biggest ideas in physics, is crucial not only for fundamental physics, but also for real-world technology. 

“We all depend on atomic clocks, whether it be for GPS or communication via satellites,” Sorci explained. “Understanding more about the physics impacting the accuracy of these systems is both intellectually interesting and practically important as humanity continues to grow with technology.” 

Within days of publishing his research on the open access scholarly archive arXiv, Sorci received a request from the journal New Scientist for an interview that resulted in the article, “Ultracold clocks could reveal how quantum physics alters time.”

“It’s been exciting and surreal to be featured like that,” he says. “I am fortunate to be able to spend my time thinking about these problems and studying them day in and day out — and then to be first author on my first paper. The New Scientist interview offered a glimpse of success, and I’m eager to continue to understand more specifically how time plays a role in quantum theory.”