Professor Lieven Vandersypen has been appointed as Research Director at QuTech from 1 September 2020. As Research Director he will chair the management board of QuTech. He will succeed professor Ronald Hanson, who has been Research Director at QuTech since the end of 2016.

Lieven Vandersypen studied Mechanical Engineering at KU Leuven and thereafter Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. While he was conducting his doctoral research at Stanford his fascination for quantum mechanics grew. In 2001, he was the first to demonstrate Shor’s quantum algorithm, which earned him his second publication in Nature. Many further publications, scientific awards and grants were to follow. The most recent of these is the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant which he received in March 2020 for his research into quantum-mechanical many body systems, with which Vandersypen hopes not only to solve existing physical problems but also to discover new physics.

Vandersypen has been at TU Delft since 2003, and was appointed full professor in 2007. He was one of the co-founders of QuTech in 2014. The Executive Board is very pleased with this appointment. “Lieven Vandersypen has been involved in TU Delft’s quantum research since the very first steps towards application were taken. We have every confidence that under his leadership great strides will be made in TU Delft’s research into the development of quantum computers and quantum internet,” says the President of the Executive Board, Tim van der Hagen. The current director, Ronald Hanson, will shift his primary focus to his research and the National Agenda Quantum Technology. We take this opportunity to thank him for his efforts as Research Director these past years.

QuTech is the centre for advanced research in the field of Quantum Computing and Quantum Internet founded by TU Delft and TNO in 2014. Since 2019, QuTech has been an independent research institute operating alongside the TU Delft faculties.