Mohammad Hafezi promoted to full professor

Mohammad Hafezi has been promoted to the rank of professor with tenure by University of Maryland (UMD) President Darryll J. Pines. The promotion is effective July 1, 2021.

Hafezi holds appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. He is a fellow of the Quantum Technology Center (QTC) and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI).

Professor Hafezi studied for two years at Sharif University before completing his undergraduate degree in Physics from École Polytechnique. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2009. He joined the UMD faculty in 2014.

Dr. Hafezi’s research focuses on nanophotonics and quantum optics. His group investigates quantum properties of light-matter interaction for applications in classical and quantum information processing and sensing. He is known for his contributions in a number of works to synthesize and characterize quantum many-body and topological physics beyond electronic systems. Examples of his contributions include cold atoms, and superconducting qubits and photons, which have helped shape the field of topological photonics. Some of his current interests include efficient characterization and probing of many-body properties in quantum simulators. His research group is currently exploring the application of quantum optics to create, probe and manipulate correlated electron systems.

This year, Hafezi’s research group won two competitive Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grants for projects titled “Wide-Band Ultrafast Laser System for Solid-State-Photonic Hybrid Quantum Systems” and “Laser and Detection System for Topological Light Sources.”

In 2020, he was awarded the Simons Investigator Award in Physics by the New York-based Simons Foundation. He was named a finalist for the second year in a row of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences. He received a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award from the Department of Defense for a team project titled “Photonic High Order Topological Insulators.” Hafezi, along with JQI Graduate Researchers Alireza Seif and Hwanmun Kim received an award from Google to support research identifying and developing problems that simple quantum computers might help solve. He is also a member of a QTC/JQI-led team that received a Quantum Systems Accelerator award to pioneer quantum technologies for discovery science.

In 2017 he received the George Corcoran Memorial Teaching Award for Faculty from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and in 2015 he was named an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator and he received a Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Published June 7, 2021