Gilles Brassard

A professor of computer science at the University of Montreal since 1979, Gilles Brassard laid the foundations of quantum cryptography at a time when no one could have foreseen that quantum technologies would become an industry now worth billions of dollars a year, that the United Nations would proclaim 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, and even less that this work would earn him the 2025 Turing Award. He is also among the inventors of quantum teleportation, internationally regarded as a fundamental pillar of quantum computing.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of London, an Officer of the Order of Canada and the Ordre national du Québec, his numerous awards include the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Micius Quantum Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and the ACM A.M. Turing Award. He has received honorary doctorates from ETH Zurich, the University of Ottawa, the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, and the University of Waterloo.

Photo credit: © Hatim Kaghat