Tommaso Calarco

Tommaso Calarco is Director of the Peter Grünberg Institute for Quantum Control (PGI-8) at Forschungszentrum Jülich and Professor of Quantum Information at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Cologne and the University of Bologna. Calarco earned his PhD at the University of Ferrara and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Peter Zoller at the University of Innsbruck. Previously, he was a Senior Researcher at the BEC Centre in Trento and Professor of Physics at the University of Ulm, where he later became Director of the Institute for Complex Quantum Systems and of the Centre for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology. He has also conducted research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and at Harvard University. He has pioneered the application of quantum optimal control methods to quantum computation and many-body quantum systems.

Calarco authored the Quantum Manifesto that initiated the European Commission’s Quantum Flagship, where he currently serves as Co-chair of the Quantum Community Network (QCN). He is Secretary of the European Commission expert group of Top-Level Specialists in Quantum Technologies, chaired by European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen, and a co-founder of the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC). He is a recipient of the Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award.