Daniel A. Lidar

Daniel A. Lidar is the Viterbi Professor of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California (USC). He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also earned his M.Sc. (1995) and B.Sc. (1989). His research focuses on quantum information science, including quantum control, error correction, adiabatic quantum computation, and quantum annealing. He directs the USC Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology and co-directs the USC-Lockheed Martin Center for Quantum Computing.

Lidar's work bridges theoretical and experimental quantum computing, with contributions to decoherence suppression, quantum algorithms, and open quantum systems. His awards include a Sloan Research Fellowship (2003), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), and fellowships from AAAS, APS, and IEEE. He has authored over 400 publications, including seminal papers on decoherence-free subspaces and quantum annealing correction.

His research group explores applications of quantum computing in chemistry, optimization, and machine learning, leveraging experimental platforms like superconducting qubits. Grants and funding from DARPA, DOE, and NSF support his efforts to advance fault-tolerant quantum technologies and bridge the gap between theory and practical implementation.