From photoassociation to BEC of ultracold polar molecules: a personal perspective in memory of Dr. Stwalley

Dr. Stwalley was one of the pioneers in ultracold polar molecules, and I was fortunate to be introduced to this field as his PhD student more than 20 years ago. In this talk, I will briefly review some of my PhD work on spectroscopy and cold molecule creation via photoassociation, and highlight Dr. Stwalley insights into several important directions in the field. I will then present our recent results on creating a BEC of polar molecules using microwave shielding, and discuss what these advances may enable next.