Professor K. Birgitta Whaley – “Can we see Quantum Mechanics at Work Around Us?”

Birgitta Whaley received her undergraduate degree from Oxford University. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago following a year as a Kennedy fellow at Harvard. Whaley joined the Berkeley faculty in 1986 after postdoctoral work at the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. While at Berkeley, she established a research program focused on understanding quantum phenomena at the interfaces of physics, chemistry, and eventually biology.

Whaley’s current research interests focus broadly on quantum information and quantum computation, control and simulation of complex quantum systems, and quantum effects in biological systems. Quantum information processing employs superposition, entanglement, and probabilistic measurement to encode and manipulate information in very different ways from the classical information processing underlying current electronic technology. Her research in quantum biology seeks to characterize and understand the role of quantum dynamical effects in biological systems, employing a perspective that combines detailed quantum simulation at the molecular scale with experimental investigations and insights using tools from quantum science and technology.

Whaley has been recognized with many awards for her scientific contributions in the course of her career. These include an American Physical Society Fellowship in 2002 and elections to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018 and the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science in 2019. Beginning in 2012, she spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Whaley has also served on numerous advisory boards, including the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. From 2019 to 2020, she served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.