CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, USA

Andrea Blanco-Redondo's career path has led her to a wide range of experiences all over the world. Characterised by wanting to understand fundamental aspects of the field and the need to develop new technologies, Andrea has a unique perspective spanning academia and industry. She became interested in nonlinear optics near the end of her undergraduate study in Spain, her home country. Her university didn't offer the in-depth study she desired, so she travelled to the UK to do a research project on Raman amplification. This was the project that hooked Andrea on photonics

Chief Scientist of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech/IPAC

Dr. Jessie Christiansen is the Chief Scientist of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech. After obtaining her PhD at the UNSW in 2008, she did her postdoctoral research at Harvard University before moving to NASA Ames in California in 2010 to work on the NASA Kepler mission. She subsequently joined the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute in 2013, where she has worked on the NASA Kepler, K2, TESS, Roman, UVEX, and Pandora missions, and is helping plan for NASA’s next big flagship mission - Habitable Worlds Observatory. Dr Christiansen’s research is in the detection and characterisation of exoplanets - planets around other stars - and understanding exoplanet populations. She is married to fellow astronomer Philip Hopkins, a professor at Caltech, and also wrangles eleven-year-old twins, two cats, and a dog in their house in the foothills of Los Angeles.

Director, CCA, Flatiron Institute

Julianne Dalcanton joined the Simons Foundation in September 2021 as the director of the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA). Her research specializes in the origins and evolution of galaxies.

Most recently, Dalcanton has worked with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to dissect images of nearby galaxies into millions of stars. Through these efforts, she has become one of the largest single users of the Hubble Space Telescope, most notably as principal investigator of a large HST Multicycle Treasury.

Prior to joining the foundation, Dalcanton served as professor of and chair of astronomy and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Washington. She earned a Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She completed postdoctoral training at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Throughout her career, Dalcanton has been recognized for achievements in the field of astrophysics. She has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER award for junior faculty, a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Wyckoff Faculty Fellowship through the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, the Mohler Prize from the University of Michigan and the Beatrice Tinsley Prize from the American Astronomical Society. She has also given the invited Eddington Lecture at the University of Cambridge, the Baird Lecture at the Ohio State University, the Spitzer Lectures at Princeton and the Sackler Lecture at Leiden University.

In addition to her research programs, Dalcanton has been widely involved in community governance and planning. She is currently serving on the steering committee of the Astro2020 Decadal review, after being vice chair of the Nearby Science Frontier Committee during the Astro2010 Decadal review. She has also previously been a member of NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s Optical-NIR Long Range Planning Committee, and the Science Advisory Committee of the Giant Magellan Telescope, in addition to being a co-lead of the AURA “From Cosmic Birth to Living Earths” study of a possible next-generation large space telescope. Dalcanton has served as vice-chair of the Space Telescope Science Institute Council, a member of the Collaboration Advisory Council of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), chair of the SDSS Galaxy Working Group and a member of the AURA nominating committee.

As a third-generation teacher, Dalcanton is equally committed to education and outreach. She has taught more than 1,500 students, and regularly participates in outreach events. She has also written for popular science outlets, including Discover.

University of Waterloo

Professor Robert Mann has a B.Sc. in physics from McMaster University and an M.Sc. and PhD from the University of Toronto. Currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo, he has been a visiting researcher at Harvard University, Cambridge University, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a visiting professor at Tours University, the University of Queensland, Pontifica Catholica University, Macquarie University, and the University of Nottingham. He has received several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, Outstanding Referees Awards from the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society, several awards for Teaching Excellence, including a Distinguished Teacher award from the University of Waterloo, an award from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, and the 2019 Medal of Excellence from the Canadian Association of Physicists. A member of several advisory boards for different foundations, research institutes, and grant selection committees, he was chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo from 2001 - 2008. He was President of the Canadian Association of Physicists in 2010 and was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Physics from 2020 - 2024.

In 2022, he was awarded the distinction of University Professor, the highest recognition of excellence offered at the University of Waterloo. In 2024, he was recognised as a Fellow of the Canadian Association of Physicists. He is Executive Editor in Chief of Canadian Science Publishing and Senior Editor of an upcoming Comprehensive Quantum Physics volume published by Elsevier. In 2026, he was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the University of Waterloo. Author of over 600 scientific papers and 3 books, his h-index is 94 and his work has been cited over 40,000 times. His research interests are in black holes, cosmology, particle physics, quantum foundations, and quantum information.

Program Lead for Thriving Departments

Sam McKagan is the Program Lead for Thriving Departments at the American Physical Society. She is the editorial director for the Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Initiative. She is the creator and director of PhysPort.org, a website that supports physics faculty in using research-based teaching and assessment in their classes and departments. She is also director of the Living Physics Portal, an online environment for physics faculty to share and discuss free curricular resources for teaching Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences, and the Physics and Equity Portal, an online environment for teachers integrating equity in high school physics.

She has over 15 years experience leading user-centered design, development, and research for physics education web resources at AAPT, APS, and universities and colleges throughout the country. She was a post-doc with the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado - Boulder, and has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington for theoretical work on Bose Einstein Condensation.

MacAdams Professor of Physics, University of California Berkeley

Hitoshi Murayama is a well-known theoretical particle physicist who works broadly, even on astrophysics, cosmology, and condensed matter physics. He has been a professor in the University of California, Berkeley, since 2000, and is also the founding director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) at the University of Tokyo, serving from 2007 to 2018. Born in Japan, lived in Germany for four years and in the US for 21 years, served on advisory committees around the world, he is a multicultural global denizen. In October 2014, he was invited to give a speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York about how science unites people and brings peace. He received the APS Lilienfeld Prize, Yukawa Commemoration Prize in Theoretical Physics, Particle Physics Medal, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Associated Faculty in the Princeton Materials Institute (PMI)

A Professor Jeffery Thompson’s research explores methods to gain control over individual atoms for computing, communications and sensing technology. When isolated, atoms display manifestly quantum mechanical behavior, routinely doing things like being in two places at the same time or getting entangled with their neighbors. In macroscopic clumps like computer chips, these effects are washed out. However, there is strong motivation to try to build computers and communications devices in such a way that the quantum properties of individual atoms can be retained because devices operating according to quantum laws can offer dramatic advantages in terms of power and security.

His research focuses on two types of isolated atoms: atoms levitated in vacuum and impurities in otherwise perfect crystals. In both cases, we use nano-fabricated optical structures as a microscope that allows us to resolve these atoms, and to prepare and measure their quantum states using photons. Additionally, these photons can be used to create interactions and entanglement between atoms.

In one research direction, we are using nanophotonic circuits to spatially isolate and address individual or small clusters of rare earth ion dopants in crystalline hosts for use as single photon sources and quantum memories. These are crucial ingredients for quantum repeater systems for quantum communications networks.

University of Colorado (Boulder)

Our research group explores the frontiers of light-matter interactions, where novel atomic and molecular matters are prepared in the quantum regime and light fields including both continuous wave and ulrashort pulses are exquisitely controlled. The experimental effort builds on and further advances precision measurement, ultracold atoms and molecules, quantum metrology, and ultrafast science and quantum control. We develop new technologies in the areas of high precision laser spectroscopy, atomic and molecular cooling and trapping, optical frequency metrology, quantum control, and ultrafast lasers; and apply these new technologies for research in fundamental physics. We investigate ultracold strontium atoms confined in optical lattices for high-accuracy atomic clocks and quantum information science. Precise control of optical frequency combs are applied for sensitive molecular detections, high resolution quantum control, and extreme nonlinear optics to explore new frontiers in spectroscopy. Ultracold molecules are being used for fundamental physics tests, studies of novel control of chemical reactions, and new quantum dynamics in ultracold matter. For a list of Professor Ye's latest publications, go to:

jila.colorado.edu/YeLabs/publications/scientific/year

UC Santa Barbara

Prof Andrea Young is a professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara. His career has focused on the development of van der Waals heterostructures—metamaterials consisting of interleaved atomically thin two dimensional crystals—and the exploration of phases that emerge from the entanglement of strongly interacting electrons. Young received a BA in physics and mathematics from Columbia University in 2006 year and a PhD in physics from Columbia in 2012 respectively. He was subsequently a Pappalardo Fellow at MIT and visiting scientist at the Weizmann Institute before starting his group at UC Santa Barbara in 2015. Young was a finalist for the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists and received a New Horizons prize from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, a Young Scientist Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the U.S Department of Defense, and has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and a Packard Fellowship.

University of Queensland, Cortisonic

Dr Christopher Baker is an ARC Future Fellow and co-founder of Cortisonic, a spin-out company out of the University of Queensland developing ultra-low power nanomechanical edge computing technologies. He received his PhD from the University of Paris in the field of cavity optomechanics. His research interests include cavity optomechanics, on-chip photonics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), leveraging precision laser-based measurement and actuation. He has applied these techniques across superfluid helium physics, nonlinear wave dynamics, microfluidics, and nanomechanical systems. His current work focuses on phononic computing, using guided acoustic waves in semiconductor chips as information carriers for next‑generation low‑power, radiation‑hard processing architectures.

University Of Sydney

University Of Sydney

Dr Zixin Huang obtained her PhD in quantum photonics at the University of Sydney, before moving to the University of Sheffield (UK) for a postdoctoral position as part of the Quantum Communications Hub. She was a Sydney Quantum Academy Fellow and DECRA Fellow at Macquarie University; she is currently a DECRA and RMIT VC Senior Research Fellow; her research explores quantum sensing, imaging, and how astronomers can utilise enhanced quantum imaging to probe deeper into space with unprecedented resolution.

University of Sydney, OzGrav

Professor Tara Murphy is an astrophysicist and Head of the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, as well as a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). She completed a BSc (Hons) at the University of Sydney before earning her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh in 2004. Since 2015, Tara has led Australia’s radio follow-up efforts for gravitational-wave events, culminating in the first detection of radio emission from the binary neutron star merger GW170817 in collaboration with international partners. She also leads the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) collaboration, which investigates some of the universe’s most dynamic radio phenomena, from gamma-ray bursts to flaring stars. A passionate and highly regarded science communicator, Tara regularly shares her enthusiasm for astronomy through television, radio, print media, and public engagement, with her writing appearing in publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Conversation, and Cosmos Magazine.

University of Melbourne

Dr GiBaik Sim is a Research Fellow in theoretical condensed matter physics at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on magnetism, superconductivity, and topological phases of matter, including recent work on altermagnets, p-wave magnets, pair-density waves, and spectroscopic probes of fractionalized particles. He completed his PhD in Physics at KAIST and has held research positions at the Technical University of Munich and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Australian National University

Dr Ling Sun is an astrophysicist at the Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU), where she works on gravitational-wave research within the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Collaboration. She is an ARC DECRA Fellow and a Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational-Wave Discovery (OzGrav). She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Melbourne in 2018, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Caltech, before joining ANU in late 2020. Her research focuses on gravitational-wave data analysis and using gravitational-wave observations to study fundamental physics, including black hole spectroscopy, black hole superradiance, ultralight dark matter, and gravitational-wave detector science.

Monash University

Dr Weiyao Zhao is a researcher in experimental condensed matter physics at Monash University, specialising in chiral quantum materials. His research focuses on neutron scattering studies of nontrivial topological materials, nonlinear electronic transport, and symmetry-driven emergent phenomena. He received his PhD from University of Wollongong in 2021 for research on magnetic topological insulators. His current work explores novel quantum states and electronic responses in correlated and topological materials for future quantum and spintronic technologies.