Meet the Team Lead

Thomas Jennewein is a professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair in Global Quantum Internet Systems at the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University. He is an affiliate faculty member of the Institute for Quantum Computing and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo. He is an affiliate of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo and a scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) in the Quantum Information Processing program, and an associated member of INO.

Prof. Jennewein’s research focuses on the applications of quantum photonics and quantum optics, in particular for long-distance quantum communications in free-space and with satellites, as well as fundamental aspects of the quantum world. Prof. Jennewein also leads the Canadian Satellite mission called Quantum EncrYption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat), which aims to demonstrate quantum communication and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) between space and ground stations across Canada.

Prof. Jennewein completed his PhD in 2002 at the University of Vienna. His thesis research on quantum communication and teleportation experiments with entangled photon pairs was awarded the Loschmidt-Prize by the Austrian Physical-Chemical Society. From 2004–2009, Prof. Jennewein was a Senior Scientist at the Vienna branch of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), working on experimental quantum photonics. Prof. Jennewein has played a key role in the advancement of long-distance transmission of entangled photons over free space, and his work on quantum cryptography using entangled photons was selected by the American Physical Society as one of the “Top Ten Highlights of 2000.”