A Tale of Two Anachronisms
Professor Nicolas Gisin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1952. After a master in physics and a degree in mathematics, he received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Geneva in 1981 for his dissertation in quantum and statistical physics. The “Fondation Louis de Broglie” recognised this work with an award. After a post-doc at the University of Rochester, NY, he joint a start-up company, Alphatronix, dedicated to fiber instrumentation for the telecommunication industry. Initially head of the software, he quickly became responsible for the hardware-software interface. Four years later he joined a Swiss software company developing an image processing package which received the attention of the American journal “PC Magazine”. In 1988 an opportunity to join the Group of Applied Physics at the University of Geneva as head of the optics section brought him back to the academic life. At the time the optics section was entirely devoted to support of the Swiss PTT (now Swisscom). In order to get a critical mass and stability, the optics section under the impulse of Prof. N. Gisin started two new research directions, one in optical sensors, one in quantum optics. The telecom and the sensing activities led to many patents and technological transfers to Swiss and international industries. Several products had and still have a commercial success. The quantum optics activities are more basic research oriented. The main theme is to combine the large expertise of the group in optical fibers with basic quantum effects. More recently, the demonstration of quantum cryptography and of long distance quantum entanglement received quite a lot of attention as well from the international scientific community as from the press “grand public”. In 2009, he was awarded the First Biennial John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications. (source: Université de Genève)
Yakir Aharonov, Ph.D., is professor of theoretical physics at Chapman University, where he holds the James J. Farley Professorship in Natural Philosophy. Considered one of the most highly regarded scientists in the world, Dr. Aharonov received the prestigious Wolf Prize in 1998 for his co-discovery of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, one of the cornerstones of modern physics. Born on August 28, 1932, Dr. Aharonov received his undergraduate education at the Technion, graduating with a B.Sc. in 1956. He continued his graduate studies at the Technion and then moved to Bristol University in England, together with his doctoral advisor David Bohm. He received his Ph.D. there in 1960. Prior to coming to Chapman University in 2008, Dr. Aharonov served on the faculties of Brandeis University, Yeshiva University, Tel Aviv University, the University of South Carolina and George Mason University. He holds the title of emeritus professor from Tel Aviv University. Although Chapman University -- where he conducts research, teaches and lectures to undergraduate and graduate students in the Schmid College of Science and Technology – is his sole full-time affiliation, he also serves as distinguished professor with the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada, a research think-tank where he meets and works with an international roster of renowned fellow members such as Stephen Hawking , Leonard Susskind and Juan Ignacio Cirac, among many others. Dr. Aharonov's current research with Chapman University team members Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., Jeff Tollaksen, Ph.D. and participants from other universities includes a grant awarded from the Science and Transcendence Advanced Research Series (STAR) for a project titled "Subjective Experience as a Window on Foundational Physics." The aim of the project is to investigate the areas of tension between objective scientific description and human conscious experience. (source: Chapman University)
Peter Barker got a background in atomic and molecular laser spectroscopy, non-linear optics, and laser trapping and cooling. Within the last 10 years his research has concentrated on the study of molecular cooling and trapping and on quantum cavity optomechanics. He has expertise in developing applications from more basic optical physics research. He was awarded a PhD in Physics from the University of Queensland, Australia in 1996. From 1997 to 2001 he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and then a Research Scientist and Lecturer in the Applied Physics Group in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Princeton University. At Princeton, I began to study the manipulation of atoms and molecules in pulsed optical fields by studying coherent Rayleigh scattering from molecules trapped in optical lattices. During his time he was part of a multidisciplinary team of physicists and engineers from Princeton University, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore developing a new type of wind tunnel for accelerating gases to hypersonic speeds using lasers and electron beams. In 2001 he took up the position of Lecturer in the Physics Department at Heriot-Watt University and became a Senior Lecturer in 2004. In October 2006 he joined the AMOP group at UCL as a Reader and was promoted to Professor in October 2007. Currently he has projects in cavity optomechanics using nanoparticles levitated in vacuum and larger microscale clamped systems based on whispering gallery mode resonators for studying fundamental quantum mechanics and for development of sensors. (source: University College London)
In recent years, it was realized that weak measurements on many copies of a system can be used to directly extract its quantum features. In a deterministic view of quantum theory, such as Bohmian mechanics, one can even acquire information that is normally inaccessible — for example, measuring simultaneously the position and momentum of a particle. This allows the direct measurement of Bohmian trajectories. I will discuss how the sub-quantum features revealed in these trajectories bring into focus the non-local nature of quantum theory and highlight its essential strangeness, as well as pave the way toward an understanding of the qualities of post-quantum theories.
Gregor Weihs is Professor of Photonics and Head of the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck and an Associate of the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing. While being on leave from his position in Vienna he spent two and a half years as Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University collaborating with the group of Yoshihisa Yamamoto (now at RIKEN) and Assistant Professor of Research at Tokyo University working on semiconductor quantum optics with Yasuhiko Arakawa's group. Gregor Weihs was DOC-fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences; he won the Appreciation Award of the Austrian Ministry of Science and Transport and the Loschmidt-Prize of the Chemical-Physical Society in Vienna. In 2007 he was awarded the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Photonics and in 2010 a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. In 2011 he was elected into the Austrian Academy of Sciences as a member of the Young Academy. His memberships include the Chemical-Physical, Austrian and American Physical Societies, the Canadian Association of Physicists, as well as the Optical Society of America. He is a fellow of the QIP program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and in addition currently holds grants from the European Research Council (ERC), and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). In his research interests include fundamental physics both experimental and theoretical, quantum and semiconductor optics and quantum information. He currently focuses on novel sources of entangled photon pairs from nonlinear waveguides, via strong coupling in semiconductor microcavities, and from semiconductor quantum dots. He further does research is in quantum communication and the foundations of physics.
Professor and Associate Chair of Physics Ariel Caticha strongly believes that “physics is learned by doing.” To encourage students to join him on his voyage of discovery, the scholar – internationally recognized for his work on a “theory of X-ray and neutron scattering by thin film multilayers” and “capillary waveguides for soft X-rays and neutrons” – makes himself accessible to his undergraduate and graduate students both inside and outside the classroom. Caticha is also noted for his enthusiasm and for his ability to convey subtle concepts. These talents, combined with his accessibility, consistently earn him high marks from students who evaluate his teaching. To date, Caticha has mentored six students toward their doctoral dissertations. In addition, he has served as a reviewer of National Science Foundation research grant proposals. The author of numerous peer-reviewed and invited articles, Caticha also referees such scientific journals as Physical Review Letters, Journal of Physics, and Journal of the Optical Society of America.
Jonathan Schooler Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). His research on human cognition explores topics that intersect philosophy and psychology, such as how fluctuations in people’s awareness of their experience mediate mind-wandering and how exposing individuals to philosophical positions alters their behavior. He is also interested in the science of science (meta-science) including understanding why effects sizes often decline over time, and how greater transparency in scientific reporting might address this issue. Towards this end, he co-organized, with support from the Fetzer Franklin Fund, a major interdisciplinary meeting on the decline effect at UCSB in 2012. A former holder of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, he is a fellow of a variety of scientific organizations, on the editorial board of a number of psychology journals, and the recipient of major grants from both the United States and Canadian governments as well as several private foundations. His research and comments are frequently featured in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Nature Magazine.
Arnold J. Mandell, M.D., is Founding Chairman and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). He presently is a Visiting Scientist at the Core MEG Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA. Previously, he held professorships at the Neuropsychiatric Institute and Brain Research Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, at the University of California at Irvine, at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and at Emory University School of Medicine. Since leaving UCSD, Dr. Mandell has been mainly involved in studying the basic science and applied mathematics of brain activity and human behavior. He has received many prestigious awards including the A.E. Bennett Research Prize of the Society for Biological Psychiatry, a Career Teacher Award of the National Institutes of Mental Health, a Johananoff International Fellowship of the Mario Negri Institute, a Foundations Research Prize of the American Psychiatric Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Prize Fellowship in Theoretical Neuroscience, and a Humboldt Senior Prize Fellowship in Dynamical Systems. Dr. Mandell’s current research focuses on dynamical systems measurements of turbulent electromagnetic fields in relationship to MEG studies of resting, intentional and attentional states of human consciousness.
Christopher Green, M.D., Ph.D., FAAFS is Professor and Assistant Dean for China/Asia Pacific at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and at Detroit Medical Center Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry, and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Previously he was Assistant National Intelligence Officer Executive Branch, US Government, and later Chief Technology Officer Asia-Pacific General Motors. He also lived in Washington D.C., China and Singapore. Kit founded and serves on the boards of several international neurotechnology and genomic companies. He uses high-field MRI for patients with complex forensic neurological disorders. He pursued his Ph.D. and M.D. degrees at Wisconsin, Colorado, and Ciudad Juarez University Schools of Medicine and is medically licensed in many states and WHO countries. As Holder of the National Intelligence Medal, and Lifetime Member of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences, Kit has served and chaired numerous Department of Defense Science Boards and has authored over 20 academic monographs and studies in neurology, and biophysics. His passion is in brain imaging, neurotoxicology and genomics, and cognition. He is a Fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
Bruce M. Carlson, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Michigan. After receiving an M.S. in ichthyology at Cornell University, he completed his medical and doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota. Over 40 years, he was a faculty member in the Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Biology at the University of Michigan. After stepping down as Chair of Anatomy and Cell Biology, he directed the Institute of Gerontology. His research involved limb and muscle regeneration, limb embryology and the biology of aging and denervated muscle. Along with 200 papers, he has authored 13 books on regeneration, embryology and lake biology and has edited another 15 symposium volumes and translations. He has received a number of awards, including the AAAS Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, the Henry Gray Award of the American Association of Anatomists, which he served as President, and membership in the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He has conducted research for extended periods in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Finland and New Zealand. His retirement activities include writing books and directing a long-term study of pike growth in an isolated northern Minnesota lake.
Howard Mark Wiseman (born 19 June 1968) is a theoretical quantum physicist notable for his work on quantum feedback control, quantum measurements, quantum information, open quantum systems, the many interacting worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and other fundamental issues in quantum mechanics. Wiseman was born in Brisbane, Australia and received his B.Sc.(Hons) in Physics from the University of Queensland in 1991. He completed his PhD in physics under Gerard J. Milburn at the University of Queensland in 1994, with a thesis entitled Quantum Trajectories and Feedback. After his PhD, Wiseman undertook a postdoc under Dan Walls at the University of Auckland. From 1996 to 2009 he held Australian Research Council (ARC) research fellowships. He is currently a Physics Professor at Griffith University, where he is the Director of the Centre for Quantum Dynamics. He is also an Executive Node Manager in the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, an ARC Centre of Excellence. His awards include the Bragg Medal of the Australian Institute of Physics, the Pawsey Medal of the Australian Academy of Science and the Malcolm Macintosh Medal, one of the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. (source: Wikipedia)
Aephraim Steinberg is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. He is also a founding member of Toronto's Institute for Optical Sciences, a member and past director of the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC), an affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and a principal investigator in Photonics Research Ontario, the Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations, and QuantumWorks. Dr. Steinberg received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994. He then held post-doctoral fellowships at the Université de Paris VI and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology before moving to Toronto in 1996. He has been a guest professor at the University of Vienna; the Institut d'Optique Théorique et Appliquée in Orsay, France; and the University of Queensland in Australia. In 2006, he received the Canadian Association of Physicists Herzberg Medal and the Rutherford Medal in Physics from the Royal Society of Canada. In 2007, he received a Steacie Fellowship from NSERC, and a McLean Fellowship (Connaught Foundation, University of Toronto). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), the American Physical Society, and the Optical Society of America. He joined CIFAR's Quantum Information Science Program in 2003. Dr. Steinberg’s interests lie in fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomena and the control & characterization of the quantum states of systems ranging from laser-cooled atoms to individual photons. His experimental program is two-pronged, using both nonclassical two-photon interference and laser-cooled atoms to study issues such as quantum information & computation, decoherence and the quantum-classical boundary, tunneling times, weak measurement & retrodiction in quantum mechanics, and the control and characterization of novel quantum states. (source: University of Toronto)
