Paola Cappellaro

Paola Cappellaro is an Italian-American engineer who is a Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research considers electron-spin resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance and quantum information processing. She also leads the MIT Quantum Engineering Group at the Center for Ultracold Atoms and is Principal Investigator at the Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Early life and education Cappellaro was born in Italy, where she attended the Polytechnic University of Milan, majoring in nuclear engineering. She was part of a joint Master's program with the École Centrale Paris, and graduated in 2000. Cappellaro moved to the United States for her graduate studies, where she worked alongside David G. Cory on quantum computation. In 2006, Cappellaro earned her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her doctorate considered quantum state transfer in spin chains, making use of magnetic-based approaches to understand and explore spin transfer dynamics. She completed her postdoctoral training at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Harvard University.

Research and career In 2009, Cappellaro returned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was made an Assistant Professor. She serves as Head of the MIT Quantum Engineering Group at the Center for Ultracold Atoms. Cappellaro has developed novel control techniques for electronic and nuclear spin qubits. She realized the first nitrogen-vacancy center diamond-based magnetometers.

In 2020, Cappellaro demonstrated that it is possible to make use of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) qubits in diamond to perform quantum operations. These NVs are defects which can be manipulated by electromagnetic waves and respond by emitting light that can carry quantum information.

Awards and honors 2004 Manson Benedict Fellowship 2012 Air Force Research Laboratory Young Investigator Award 2013 Edgerton Professorship 2020 Committed to Caring Award

Selected publications