Anton Zeilinger (German: [ˈtsaɪlɪŋɐ]; born 20 May 1945) is an Austrian quantum physicist who in 2008 received the Inaugural Isaac Newton Medal of the Institute of Physics (UK) for "his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information". Zeilinger is professor of physics at the University of Vienna and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information IQOQI at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Most of his research concerns the fundamental aspects and applications of quantum entanglement.

Biography

Anton Zeilinger, born 1945 in Austria, has held positions at the Technical University of Vienna and the University of Innsbruck. He has held visiting positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), at Humboldt University in Berlin, Merton College, Oxford and the Collège de France (Chaire Internationale) in Paris. Zeilinger's awards include the Wolf Prize in Physics (2010), the Inaugural Isaac Newton Medal of the IOP (2007) and the King Faisal International Prize (2005). In 2005, Anton Zeilinger was among the "10 people who could change the world", elected by the British newspaper New Statesman. He is a member of seven Scientific Academies. Anton Zeilinger is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Vienna and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to whose Presidency he was recently elected. Since 2006, Zeilinger is the vice chairman of the board of trustees of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, an ambitious project initiated by Zeilinger's proposal. In 2009, he founded the International Academy Traunkirchen which is dedicated to the support of gifted students in science and technology. He is a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, going so far as to name his sailboat 42.