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Biography

Dr Ting Rei Tan is a Principal Investigator at the Quantum Control Laboratory (QCL) at The University of Sydney. He is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and holds a prestigious Sydney Horizon Fellowship investigating the use of a quantum computer to design new photoactive drugs.

Dr Tan’s research career in experimental quantum physics spans three institutes across three continents. He was trained by David Wineland (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2012) at the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He obtained a PhD in Physics in 2016 from the University of Colorado – Boulder. His work on high-fidelity universal quantum gate set holds the world record for 5 years. Furthermore, his work on mixed-species quantum entangling gates in 2016 was selected as a Top 10 physics breakthrough by the United Kingdom’s Institute of Physics. In 2017, Dr Tan was awarded the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Fellowship in Singapore to develop a lutetium-ion-based optical atomic clock for precision metrology.

Dr Tan joined the University of Sydney’s Quantum Control Laboratory in 2019 and was awarded the inaugural Sydney Quantum Academy fellowship. His research focuses on innovating novel quantum control approaches for quantum sensing, quantum simulations of chemical dynamics, and hardware-resource-efficient quantum computing.

Professional Preparation
BSc (Hons) in Physics – National University of Singapore (2009)
Ph.D. in Physics – University of Colorado – Boulder, National Institute of Standards and Technology (2016)

Appointments
01/2024 – present: Sydney Horizon Fellow – (University of Sydney)
10/2023 – present: Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow – University of Sydney
09/2020 – 09/2023: Sydney Quantum Academy Research Fellow – University of Sydney
12/2020 – 09/2020: Quantum Control Laboratory (University of Sydney) Research Fellow
09/2017 – 11/2019: Lee Yuan Yew Postdoctoral Fellow – National University of Singapore

Awards
2024 – Australian Institute of Policy and Science – Young Tall Poppy Award (NSW)
2021 – Best Team Project Award, ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems
2020 – Distinguished Associate Award, United States National Institute of Standards and Technology
2016 – Top Ten Physics Breakthrough of 2016, Institute of Physics (United Kingdom)