Benjamin Lev

Benjamin Lev is a Professor in both the Department of Physics and Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. He received his A.B. in Physics (Magna Cum Laude) from Princeton University (1999) and Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech (2005). After National Research Council postdoctoral work at JILA/NIST and an Assistant Professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he joined Stanford in 2011.

• Key research focus: Quantum many-body physics and cavity quantum electrodynamics
• Major achievements: Dysprosium quantum gas production, SQCRAMscope development, cavity spin glass realization
• Funded by: NSF, DOE, ARO, AFOSR, ONR, DARPA, NTT, Moore Foundation

His research spans quantum simulation, quantum materials, and synthetic gauge fields, with notable work on:

• Dipolar quantum gases of dysprosium
• Photon-mediated spin glass systems
• Cavity QED for quantum neural networks
• Quantum thermalization dynamics
• Supersolid states and topological pumping
• Quantum gas microscopes

Scientific awards include:

• APS Fellow (2021)
• DARPA Young Faculty Award (2012)
• PECASE (2011)
• Packard Fellowship (2010)

Lev leads the LevLab, a joint AMO & CM experimental group developing confocal cavity QED techniques for quantum matter engineering. He has graduated numerous doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers, and teaches courses ranging from quantum physics fundamentals to advanced ultracold quantum physics.