Michelle Y. Simmons

Biography

Michelle Simmons is currently a Scientia professor and Laureate Fellow at the University of New South Wales. She obtained a double degree in physics and chemistry and was awarded a PhD in Physics from Durham University, UK in 1992. Her Postdoctoral position was as a Research Fellow in quantum electronics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, UK where she gained an international reputation for her work in the discovery of the ‘0.7 feature’ and metallic behaviour in 2D Gas hole systems. In 1999, she was awarded a QEII Fellowship and came to Australia where she was a founding member of the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology. Since then she has established a large research group dedicated to the fabrication of atomic-scale devices in silicon and germanium using the atomic precision of a scanning tunneling microscope. Her group is the only group world-wide that can make atomically precise devices in silicon: they have developed the world’s first single atom transistor and the thinnest conducting doped wires in silicon. She has published more than 360 papers in refereed journals with an h-index of 40 including 27 Physical Review Letters and papers in Nature, Science, Nature Materials, Nature Physics and Nature Nanotechnology. She has been awarded two Federation Fellowships and is currently an ARC Laureate Fellow. In 2005 she was awarded the Pawsey Medal by the Australian Academy of Science becoming one of the youngest elected Fellows of this Academy in 2006. In 2012 she was named NSW Scientist of the Year and in 2014 became an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science. In 2015, Michelle was awarded the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal, and was the winner of the Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science.

Research Interest

Quantum Computation & Communication Technology