Acatech unites more than six hundred individuals from science and industry as the national academy and voice of engineering in Germany and on an international level. The members of Acatech are admitted to the academy on the basis of their scientific achievements and reputation. They come from the fields of engineering and sciences, medicine, and humanities and social sciences.

At this year’s annual meeting of the National Academy of Science and Engineering, a total of 39 new members were elected. Among them five experts for laser, photonics, and quantum physics:

Andrés Lasagni is a professor at TU Dresden since 2012. Since 2017, he is coordinator of the Center for Advanced Micro-Photonics (CAMP) at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Tech­nology IWS in Dresden. Born in Argentina, he began his academic career with a degree in chemical engineering at the National University of Comahue in Argentina and completed his doctorate in materials science at Saarland University in 2006. After a research stay in the USA, he came to Dresden in 2008 to set up a research group at the Fraunhofer IWS. Lasagni researches industrial solutions for surface functionali­zation using laser technology.

Heike Riel is IBM Fellow, head of science and technology and lead of IBM Research Quantum Europe, responsible for leading the research agenda of the science and technology depart­ment aiming to create scientific and techno­logical break­throughs in quantum computing, physics of artificial intel­ligence, nano­science and nano­technology, precision diagnostics and smart system integration. She also serves as the deputy director of the new Swiss National Competence Center for Research on Silicon Spin Qubits.

Piet Oliver Schmidt is a professor at Hannover University and the PTB in Braunschweig where he heads the Institute for Experimental Quantum Metrology. He had studied physics in Constance and Portland and received his doctorate from the University of Stuttgart in 2003. From 2005 to 2008 he was assistant to Rainer Blatt and got appointed professor in 2009.

Sebastian M Schmidt studied theoretical physics in Rostock and Dubna and is an expert for quantum chromodynamics and quantum electrodynamics (QED). He received a Minerva stipend from the University of Tel Aviv as well as a stipend from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work at the Argonne National Laboratory. From 2002 to 2006, Schmidt acted as employee and later as managing director of the Helmholtz Association headquarters in Berlin. In 2020, he became scientific director of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).

Christine Silberhorn is currently chair for integrated quantum optics and head of the Institute for Photonic Quantum Systems at Paderborn University. The physicist was awarded the Leibniz Prize in 2011 and was the youngest recipient of the 2.5 million euro prize at that time. (Sources: Acatech / HZDR / IBM / LUH / TU Dresden / U Paderborn)

Further reading: “We aim to provide quantum-centric supercomputing”,  interview with Heike Riel, PhotonicsViews 20(5). p. 28, October 2023 • Christoph Leyens appointed to Acatech Executive Board, wiley­industry­news.com, 29 March 2022