Antonio was born in Los Angeles, CA. From an early age, he showed an affinity for mathematics, teaching himself calculus at the age of 13. After reading Stephen Hawking’s “The Universe in a Nutshell” and “A Brief History of Time”, he became fascinated by physics. In 2008, he entered Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he earned his BS in applied physics and decided to focus on condensed matter, a choice that strongly influenced his decision to enter Columbia’s physics PhD program in 2012. After receiving his PhD in 2017, he worked as a postdoctoral at the University of Maryland's Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials before moving to his current position with the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Throughout his education, Antonio has also greatly enjoyed languages. In middle and high school, he studied Spanish Literature and Latin during the year and Arabic during the summers at UCLA. In college, he learned Hebrew his first year and traveled abroad to study physics at the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel (in Hebrew) during his second year (in fact, he learned quantum mechanics, fluid physics and optics for the first time in Hebrew).
Since middle school, Antonio has loved tutoring and teaching students. He has taught and tutored dozens of students of all levels ranging from arithmetic to graduate-level physics and math. Additionally, Antonio two semesters of chess and mathematics to inner city middle school students through citizen schools. At Columbia, he has also acted as a TA in the general physics lab classes for engineers and premeds, the advanced undergraduate/graduate Solid State course. He also designed and taught a statistical mechanics and thermodynamics course to talented high school students through Columbia’s Science Honors Program in 2013 and an introductory physics course for the Columbia University Summer Health Professions Education Program in 2017.
