Erik W. Streed received the B.Sc. degree in physics from Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA, in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, in 2006. He completed his graduate work in Bose–Einstein Condensate at the Group of Wolfgang Ketterle (Physics Nobel 2001). He is an Associate Professor. He is a Physicist at the School of Environment and Science, Griffith University’s, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, where he is also the Deputy Director at the Center for Quantum Dynamics, and a Research Leader at the Institute for Glycomics. He is best known for his pioneering work in integrating diffractive optics with trapped ions, which lead to the first imaging of a single atom’s shadow.