Elena is a photonics researcher specializing in topological and neuromorphic photonics, with a strong focus on light-matter interaction at the sub-nanoscale. She is currently establishing her junior research group at the Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena. Her research emphasizes the interaction of light with tailored photonic structures and engineered materials designed for computing and information processing applications.

She completed her PhD at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, where her work focused on the development of three-dimensional photonic crystals for the study of topological photonic systems. During her time at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, China, where she served as an Associate Professor, Elena developed neuromorphic information processing architectures and optical neural networks implemented with nanoprinted photonics elements.

In her current role, Elena’s research is driven by interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersection of physics, photonics, and computation. She combines fundamental studies of engineered materials and their interaction with complex optical fields with the development of functional architectures for neuromorphic and optical computing, exploring how engineered photonic structures can enable efficient, high-speed, and energy-efficient information processing. Her work is motivated by advancing photonic platforms that bridge fundamental optical science with emerging technologies for next-generation computing and intelligent information processing.

Maria is a professional in the fields of optics and laser physics. She currently works as an R&D Laser Reference Developer at Toptica Photonics SE in Gräfelfing, Germany.

She received her PhD in Laser Physics in 2018 from Moscow State University in Russia. She then accepted a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Erlangen, Germany. During her postdoctoral research, she studied the optical trapping of microparticles in hollow-core photonic crystal fibres, investigating the interaction of the trapped microparticles with femtosecond pulsed light. She has also worked on the development of modern optical endoscopes.

In her current role, she works on the development of cutting-edge instrumentation for high-precision metrology, including optical frequency combs and ultrastable laser systems for quantum technologies. Her experience of working with femtosecond and CW lasers, together with her knowledge of fibre optics, enables her to push the boundaries of laser quantum technologies.

Ricarda is the Administrative Director and a member of the Managing Board of the Weizenbaum Institute, the German Research Institute for the Networked Society.

She studied physics at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and received her doctorate in 1998 from Humboldt University of Berlin in the field of X-ray structure analysis. She then conducted postdoctoral research at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) in Amsterdam. After starting a family and returning to Berlin, she turned to science management. From 2006 to 2012, she was Chief Research Manager for "Structure of Matter" at the Helmholtz Association, and from 2012 to 2022, she served as Deputy Secretary General and Head of the Academic Affairs Department at the Leibniz Association, where she was responsible for strategic organisation-related issues, such as the founding of the Leibniz Leadership Academy.

In her current role, communication, leadership, and general management shape her everyday life. Ricarda is fascinated by the people she works with: The brightest scientists from a wide range of disciplines come together to conduct impressive and highly relevant research, and dedicated administrators contribute to ensuring optimal research conditions at an institute where the results reflect the highest scientific standards and the work and leadership culture is characterized by a strong value-based compass and attitude.

 

Annabelle is a theoretical physicist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich whose work focuses on understanding strongly interacting quantum many-body systems, such as electrons in solids or ultracold atoms in optical lattices.

She uses a combination of state-of-the-art numerical methods, intuitive physical models, close collaboration with quantum simulation experiments, and machine-learning techniques to extract insights from complex quantum data. Among her contributions are using “snapshots” of quantum states to identify hidden patterns (for example, in the Hubbard model) and developing interpretable neural-network architectures to classify and understand many-body quantum states. Her work bridges the gap between abstract theoretical models, highly controllable experimental platforms, and quantum materials, with the aim of revealing how complex quantum matter behaves in real systems.