2016 Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Professors

The two-week School was filled with quantum information talks as well as public lectures by three Nobel Laureates, namely Prof Anthony Leggett, Prof Serge Haroche and Prof Gerard ’t Hooft who were appointed as Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Professors. The School was jointly organised with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics and it aimed to provide broad, solid foundations in modern topics of quantum information science. 

Prof Serge Haroche is a French physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David Wineland for groundbreaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems, a study of the particle of light, the photon.

Prof Anthony Leggett is widely recognized as a world leader in the theory of low-temperature physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003 for his pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.

Prof Gerard 't Hooft  shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Martinus J. G. Veltman for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions. He is also an ambassador for the Mars One project, an attempt to land the first humans on Mars and establish a permanent colony there by 2027.

Among the memorial meeting speakers were four Nobel Prize winners, Professors David Gross, Anthony Leggett, Carlo Rubbia and Gerard 't Hooft, who were appointed as the Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Professors. The memorial meeting commemorated the late Abdus Salam's numerous achievements and pioneering contributions to physics. He was the first Muslim to be awarded the Nobel Prize in science and a major figure in the field of physics.