Franco Nori

Optica (formerly OSA) is pleased to announce that Franco Nori, RIKEN, Japan, and University of Michigan, USA, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Charles Hard Townes Medal. Nori is honored for his many fundamental contributions to quantum optics, quantum information processing, and quantum circuits, and for the development of key quantum software tools.

Nori received his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois, USA and then completed postdoctoral research work at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (now KITP), at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, becoming a full Professor and Research Scientist in its Physics Department. He is also a RIKEN Chief Scientist, leading their "Theoretical Quantum Physics Laboratory" and serving as a Team Leader of the "Quantum Information Theory Research Team", in the RIKEN Quantum Computing Center.

His research group has done pioneering interdisciplinary studies at the interface between quantum optics, quantum electronics, quantum information, nanoscience, optomechanics, dissipative quantum open systems, superconducting quantum circuitry for quantum computing, photonics, atomic physics with quantum circuits, computational physics, and condensed matter physics.

Click here to read more about Nori's award at Optica