Strategic Advisory Board (SAB)
The academic and industry experts of the SAB provide advice on the Quantum Flagship strategic decisions.
The Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) provides advice for strategic decision-making to the Quantum Flagship, with long-term impact across the whole initiative. The SAB steers the preparation of the Quantum Flagship’s Strategic Agendas. The SAB also designed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor the Flagship’s progress towards its main goals, both in research and innovation and in non-technical areas, such as education and outreach. These KPIs are measured and evaluated yearly under the SAB’s guidance.
The SAB convenes on a quarterly basis. You can find the list of SAB members in the official European Commission announcement with more information below. The respective chairs and deputy chairs of the Quantum Coordination Board (QCB[link]), the Quantum Community Network (QCN) and the current CSA report to the SAB and attend meetings as observers.
Members of the SAB
Jürgen Mlynek studied physics at the TU Hannover and the École Polytechnique in Paris. He became a professor in experimental physics at the University of Constance. After 10 years of researching and teaching in the field of experimental quantum optics, atomic physics and surface physics, he served as Vice-President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1996 to 2001. In September 2000 he became President of the Humboldt University Berlin, which he developed into one of Germany's leading universities. In 2005 he was elected as president of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers, the umbrella organisation of the national laboratories in Germany, where he served until 2015. Mlynek has received numerous science and research prizes and was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2010.
Johanna Sepúlveda received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Colombia, M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering–Microelectronics by the University of São Paulo. She was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Integrated Systems group of the University of São Paulo (Brazil), Embedded Security group of the University of South Brittany (France), Heterogeneous Systems group of the University of Lyon-INRIA (France) and the Security group of the Technical University of Munich (Germany). Since 2019, she works at Airbus as an Expert on Quantum-Secure Technologies. She has more than 15 years of experience in research and development in the area of security and new technologies. She has a relevant research and teaching role in the European academic and industrial environment in the area of quantum technology.
Andreas Tuennermann was born in Ahnsen, Germany, on June 10th, 1963. He received the diploma and PhD degree in physics from the University of Hannover in 1988 and 1992, respectively. He was head of the department of laser development at the Laser Zentrum Hannover from 1992 to 1997. In 1998 he joined the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany as a Professor and Director of the Institute of Applied Physics. In 2003 he became the Director of the Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Optics and Precision Engineering in Jena. His research activities are focused on photonics and quantum technology. He is a member of the German Physical Society, the Optical Society of America and SPIE. His research activities have been awarded various awards, e.g. the Leibniz-Award and the ERC-Grand.
Adam Piotrowsky graduated of Warsaw University of Technology in 2002 with a master's degree in electronics engineering. He has a PhD degree in technical sciences engineer at the Military University of Technology in 2008. He works at VIGO System S.A. since 2002. He was introducing novel semiconductor production technologies to the company and managing the production. Since January 2015 is a President of the Board of VIGO System S.A. and as a president of the Employer Association Polish Technological Platform on Photonics. Since 2017 he is a member of the Board of Stakeholders of Partnership Photonics21 taking active participation in providing the vision for European technological development. He is the author of many publications on methods of manufacture and applications of infrared detectors. He is responsible for application developments of novel sensor systems especially laser-based, affordable gas detectors and analyzers. He was taking part in multiple national, European and pure industrial projects.
Anna Sanpera Trigueros is, since 2005, an ICREA Professor at the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona (UAB), where she leads a research group working on the fields of quantum information theory, ultracold atomic gases, quantum optics and condensed matter. After completing her PhD in quantum optics at the UAB, she became Research Fellow at Oxford University (1992-1995), at Paris-Saclay-CEA (1996-1997) and assistant professor at the Leibnitz University of Hannover (1998-2005). Member of the editorial board of the journals Quantum, J. of Physics B and Physical Review A. She is the scientific director of the Quantum Engineering Postgraduate degree at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and a member of the scientific advisory board of the Max Plank Institute for the Science of Light.
Bogdan Govoreanu received his Ph.D. in applied sciences from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Since 2004, he has been with IMEC, Leuven, where he is currently a Principal Scientist. His current research interests include quantum devices and memory technologies.
Carlos Kuchkovsky began his career as a multiplayer mobile video game developer. After that Carlos has worked for BBVA in a number of senior positions, positioning BBVA as a leader in quantum computing, AI, blockchain, digital identity, new business, and digital platforms among other areas. Carlos has held different board positions on international associations at Hyperledger, INATBA, Alastria, and the Strategic Advisory Board of the Quantum Flagship, working on the evolution of blockchain, AI, quantum technologies, and Web 3.0. He has published scientific and tech papers and created and led over 30 patents. He also lectures in International MBAs in fintech, deep tech, and new business models. Currently, he is leading QCentroid, a mission-oriented Web 3.0 ecosystem, with the purpose of accelerating sustainable transformation through new ways of working, tech, science, and data.
Eleni Diamanti is a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), at the LIP6 laboratory of Sorbonne University, and coordinator of the Paris Centre for Quantum Technologies. She studied electrical and computer engineering at the National Technical University of Athens before completing her Master's and Ph.D. at Stanford University. She returned to Europe as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Institut d'Optique and earned her habilitation from Paris Diderot University in 2014. She joined the CNRS in 2009. Her research focuses on experimental quantum cryptography and communication and on the development of photonic resources and applications for quantum networks. She plays an active role in the European Quantum Flagship and received a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2018, and the CNRS Silver and Innovation Medals in 2024.
Fabio Cavaliere is an Expert in Photonic Systems and Technologies at Ericsson, where he also leads the standardization strategy in optical communications. Fabio is the author of about 130 filed patent applications, 90 publications on optical networks and the book “Photonics applications for radio systems and Networks (Artech House, Boston, USA). In 23 years of professional experience, his research activity encompassed radio access networks, fibre access, high-speed optical transmission and integrated photonics. Fabio is in the technical program committees of international conferences on optical communications, guest editor of the Applied Science Special Issue on Optical Networks, and editor of the ITU-T Recommendation G.698.4. He is in the Board of Stakeholders of Photonics 21 and in the Expert Advisory Board of Networld2020. In the Quantum Flagship, he was first in the High Level Steering Committee and, currently, in the Strategic Advisory Board.
Massimo Inguscio received his PhD in Physics from Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy) in 1976. He has been Professor of Optics and Physics of Matter at the Universities of Napoli and Firenze and, since 2019, at Campus Bio-medico University of Rome. He has been co-founder and director of the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS), President of the Italian metrology institute (INRIM), President of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). His research activity spans from high-precision spectroscopy of atoms and molecules for fundamental tests of physics, to experiments with ultracold quantum gases for the development of atom-based and photon-based quantum technologies.
Prof. Nikolay V. Vitanov is the group leader of the Quantum Optics and Quantum Information group. He received his PhD in physics in 1994 at Sofia University. He was postdoc at Imperial College London (1994-1995, with Peter L. Knight), Helsinki Institute of Physics (1995-2001, with Stig Stenholm), and Technical University of Kaiserslautern (2002-2003, with Klaas Bergmann). Associate Professor (since 2004) and Full Professor (since 2009) at the Department of Physics of Sofia University, Corresponding Member (since 2014) of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He has published about 200 articles in scientific journals, including three major reviews (the last one in Reviews of Modern Physics in 2017), with over 4000 citations. His main interests are in quantum, semiclassical and classical optics and quantum computation. He pioneered the theoretical development of new adiabatic and composite quantum control techniques, many of which have been experimentally demonstrated. Some of these methods have been successfully applied to polarization and nonlinear optics. His theoretical work is directed toward several physical platforms: trapped ions, trapped atoms, doped solids, classical optics.
Radu has 20+ years research experience in quantum information & quantum technologies. After a PhD in theoretical physics (Cambridge University, 1999), Radu has joined the brave new quantum world and worked worldwide (UK, Italy, Australia, Canada) in both academia and industry (Hewlett-Packard Labs). His interests include all things Q: quantum technologies, quantum information, quantum imaging, quantum communications, quantum computers. He is also the Romanian representative (Sherpa) in the EuroQCI Board.
Radu has founded and coordinates RoQnet, Romanian Quantum Network www.roqnet.ro, aiming to develop quantum technologies in Romania. Currently he is a Senior Researcher at IFIN-HH (Bucharest, Romania).
Dr Rogier Verberk holds a PhD In experimental physics from Leiden University (2005). At TNO he worked on EUV lithography with ASML and Carl Zeiss and became the principal project manager. From 2013 on he helped to set up the QuTech research centre for quantum technologies. Since 2016 he is Market Director at TNO responsible for Semiconductor Equipment, Quantum Technologies, lndustry4.0. and Medical Instrumentation. He is active as a core team member of the Dutch national roadmaps for Nanotechnology and Semiconductor Equipment, the Coordination and Support Action of the European Quantum Technologies Flagship and Supervisory Board member of QuantumDeltaNL.
Stephan Schächer is bridging the technical and the business world: He started his career in finance at Ford Motor and is now responsible for new applications and innovations in Infineon’s Power Management business. Here, he has the opportunity to develop new topics for Infineon like Battery Management, Wireless Power and Quantum Computing. Before that, he started a new product line of cost-effective accessory authentication ICs and grew it into a sizeable business. He also worked as a project manager for M&A projects conducting large acquisitions, JVs, as well as divestitures and spinouts. He spent 4 years of his professional life in the automotive industry and more than 20 in semiconductors. He was educated in mechanical engineering and also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance.
Dr. Thomas Strohm received his PhD in 1999 at the MPI for Solid State Research in Stuttgart where he did theoretical work on high-temperature superconductors.
Thomas then joined the Corporate Research division of Robert Bosch GmbH and worked for more than 10 years in software engineering research and as a system and software architect.
In 2013, he started building up the research activities on quantum technologies at Bosch. Currently, Thomas is Chief Expert for Quantum Technologies at Bosch. Bosch has R&D activities in quantum computing applications and in quantum sensing. Thomas until recently contributed to two EU-funded projects, the Quantum Flagship's Coordination and Support Action QFlag and QRANGE, a project for quantum random number generators. In 2020, he was a key person in establishing the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC), where he acts as a vice president and work group leader. Thomas is also part of the steering committee of the German Quantum Technology and Applications Consortium (QUTAC) and, with colleagues researches quantum machine learning algorithms.