Gerard J. Milburn


Gerard James Milburn is an Australian theoretical quantum physicist notable for his work on quantum feedback control, quantum measurements, quantum information, open quantum systems, and Linear optical quantum computing.

Education

Milburn received his BSc in Physics from Griffith University in 1980. He completed his PhD in physics under Daniel Frank Walls at the University of Waikato in 1982, with a thesis entitled Squeezed States and Quantum Nondemolition Measurements.

Career and Research

Following his PhD, Milburn did postdoctoral research in the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London in 1983. Later, in 1984, he was awarded a Royal Society Fellowship to work in the Quantum Optics group of Peter Knight, at Imperial.
In 1985 he returned to Australia and was appointed lecturer at The Australian National University. In 1988 Milburn took up an appointment as Reader in Theoretical Physics at The University of Queensland. In 1994 he was appointed as Professor of Physics and in 1996 became Head of Department of Physics at The University of Queensland. From 2000 to 2010 he was Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology. From 2003 to 2013 he was an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow at the University of Queensland.
He was the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Institute for Quantum Computing and served on the scientific advisory committee for the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2007 to 2010.
From 2011 to 2017 he was the Director and Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems.

Honors and awards

His awards include the Moyal Medal for Mathematical Physics and Boas medal,. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017.