Nathalie de Leon

Last updated

Nathalie Pulmones de Leon
Born1982 (age 4243)
Alma mater Stanford University
Harvard University
Scientific career
Institutions Princeton University
Thesis [ ProQuest   877967609 Engineering confined Electrons and Photons at the Nanoscale] (2011)
Doctoral advisor Hongkun Park
Other academic advisors Richard Zare
Mikhail Lukin

Nathalie Pulmones de Leon (born 1982) is a Filipino-American chemist, physicist, and associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University. Her research focuses on building quantum technologies with solid state defects and the identification of novel materials systems for superconducting qubits. [1] She was awarded the 2023 American Physical Society Rolf Landauer and Charles H. Bennett Award in Quantum Computing. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Nathalie de Leon was born in Makati, the Philippines, in 1982 and raised in California. [3] [4] Her parents were also born in the Philippines. Her maternal grandfather was a commercial seaman who was stationed in San Francisco during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was subsequently offered U.S. citizenship contingent on joining the United States Coast Guard. de Leon spent part of her childhood in the Philippines but completed high school in the United States. [4]

De Leon was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. She completed her undergraduate research in the laboratory of Richard Zare, where she worked on laser spectroscopy. She performed laser-based mass spectrometry on meteoritic samples to explore chemical reactions in space. [1] de Leon moved to Harvard University for her doctoral research in chemical physics, where she joined the laboratory of Hongkun Park.

Her research looked to achieve nanoscale confinement of electrons and photons. [5] She developed a nanoscale plasmon resonator capable of tailoring specific light-matter interactions, and demonstrated it convert a broadband emitter to a narrow-band single-photon source. [6] de Leon remained at Harvard University as a postdoctoral researcher, working with Mikhail Lukin.[ citation needed ]

Awards and honors

Select publications

Personal life

de Leon is married, and met her husband while she was completing her postdoc appointment at Harvard and he was finishing his PhD. [4]

References

  1. 1 2 "Welcomes Nathalie de Leon (Princeton University) | QFARM". qfarm.stanford.edu. Stanford University. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  2. 1 2 Lyon, Scott (October 7, 2022). "Solid-state expert Nathalie de Leon has won the APS quantum computing award". Electrical and Computer Engineering. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  3. de Leon, Nathalie P.; Lukin, Mikhail D.; Park, Hongkun (2012). "Quantum Plasmonic Circuits". IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics. 18 (6): 1781–1791. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.453.8971 . doi:10.1109/JSTQE.2012.2197179. S2CID   16846746.[ non-primary source needed ]
  4. 1 2 3 American Institute of Physics (March 15, 2022). "Nathalie de Leon". www.aip.org. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  5. de Leon, Nathalie Pulmones (2011). Engineering confined Electrons and Photons at the Nanoscale (Thesis). ProQuest   877967609.[ non-primary source needed ]
  6. de Leon, Nathalie P.; Shields, Brendan J.; Yu, Chun L.; Englund, Dirk E.; Akimov, Alexey V.; Lukin, Mikhail D.; Park, Hongkun (May 31, 2012). "Tailoring Light-Matter Interaction with a Nanoscale Plasmon Resonator". Physical Review Letters. 108 (22) 226803. arXiv: 1202.0829 . doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.226803. PMID   23003638. S2CID   6880833.[ non-primary source needed ]
  7. "Nathalie De Leon receives U.S. Air Force Young Investigator award". Office of the Dean for Research. October 18, 2016. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  8. "de Leon named as 2017 Sloan Research Fellow". Electrical and Computer Engineering. February 27, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  9. "NSF Award Search: Award # 1752047 - CAREER: Novel Diamond Surface Functionalization and Nanoscale Surface Spectroscopy for Quantum Applications". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  10. "FY 2018 DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program Award Abstracts (06-27-2018)" (PDF). July 6, 2018.
  11. "Honors and Award Winners". www.aps.org. Retrieved August 28, 2025.