Plenary Speakers

David Reitze holds joint positions as the Executive Director of the LIGO Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and as a Professor of Physics at the University of Florida. His research focuses on the development of gravitational-wave detectors.  He received a B.A. in Physics from Northwestern Univ. and a Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Texas of Austin. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the Optical Society. and was jointly awarded the 2017 US National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery for his leadership role in LIGO. He is a member of the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration that received numerous awards for the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, including the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Gruber Prize for Cosmology, the Princess Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, and the American Astronomical Society Bruno Rossi Prize. He served as the Spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration from 2007 until 2011. 

Franco Nori is a Chief Scientist at Riken (the Japanese National Laboratory), and has a concurrent appointment, since 1990, at the Physics Department of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

His research group has done interdisciplinary studies at the interface between nanoscience, quantum information, superconducting quantum circuitry for quantum computing, photonics, quantum optics, atomic physics, nano-mechanics, mesoscopics, computational physics, and condensed matter physics.

He has been a “Highly Cited Researcher” during both 2017 and 2018. Also has more than 100 publications in Physical Review Letters, ~ 50 in Science and Nature journals, and a GS h-index of over 100.

He is an Elected Fellow of the: American Physics Society (APS), Institute of Physics (IoP), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Optical Society of America (OSA) [this last one “for fundamental contributions to quantum information science and optics, including circuit quantum electrodynamics, and the interface between quantum optics and quantum circuits”]. He received the 2014 Prize for Research in Physics, from the Matsuo Foundation, Japan; and the 2013 Prize for Science, by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. Also, an “Excellence in Research Award” and an “Excellence in Education Award” from the University of Michigan. He is an Elected Member of the Latin American Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Swedish Royal Society of Arts and Sciences, in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dr. Steve Grubb is a Global Optical Architect at Facebook, overseeing the build of several new open submarine cable systems and introducing new optical technologies for Facebooks global network. Prior to Facebook, he was a Fellow at Infinera where for 14 years he directed work on next generation Photonic Integrated optical and network technologies. Dr. Grubb was also responsible for the first commercial introduction of Raman amplifiers in fiber networks. He demonstrated and patented several unique laser and amplifier devices while at Bell Labs, including the cascaded Raman resonator. Dr. Grubb received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and has over 120 published papers and conference contributions and over 75 issued US Patents.

Jelena Vuckovic (PhD Caltech 2002) is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and by courtesy of Applied Physics at Stanford, where she leads the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab. She is also the director of the Q-FARM: the Stanford-SLAC Quantum Initiative.
Vuckovic has won numerous prizes including the Distinguished Scholarship of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich, Germany, the Humboldt Prize, the Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), of the Optical Society of America (OSA), and of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE).