Nobel Laureate in Physics John Martinis will present his quantum mechanics research on campus as a part of the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board’s new lecture series in Klarman Hall on Wednesday.
Martinis, who earned the Nobel Prize in 2025, will speak in the Rhodes-Rawlings auditorium as part of CURB’s “Frontiers of Discovery Lecture Series,” which hosts prominent researchers to speak on campus. During the event, Martinis will discuss the research that earned him the Nobel Prize and the greater impacts of his work; afterward, attendees can ask him questions during a moderated Q&A session, according to the event’s description.
Two other physicists share the Nobel Prize with Martinis, who is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Michel Devoret, a professor of physics at UCSB, and John Clarke, a professor emeritus of physics at University of California, Berkeley, jointly earned the Nobel Prize with Martinis for the work they completed together in 1984 and 1985 that demonstrated “quantum mechanical properties on a macroscopic scale.”
Their work showed that the macroscopic system could be quantized — a quantum mechanics phenomenon where a particle “only absorbs or emits specific amounts of energy,” according to a press release by The Nobel Prize.
As co-founder and chief technology officer of Qolab, a quantum hardware company, Martinis currently works in quantum computing. Martinis previously shared the 2024 Fritz London Memorial Prize with Devoret and Robert Schoelkopf, professor of applied physics and physics at Yale University, and separately received the 2021 John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications.
Sarvesh Prabhu ’28, chair of CURBx, a semi-annual event where undergraduates share their research in a TEDx-style presentation, is the lead organizer of Martinis’s Wednesday lecture.
Prabhu shared that the goal of the series is to bring in speakers from beyond Cornell.
CURB, in its mission to promote and enrich the Cornell undergraduate research experience, connects students with professors and other students at the University through CURB Connect and the Peer Mentorship Program, respectively. However, Prabhu said CURB also wanted to connect students with spearheading scientists from across the globe.
“That's really how [the lecture series] was envisioned: to bring people from across the world, wherever they may be, who are at the frontiers of their field to Ithaca,” Prabhu told The Sun.
While in the past, visiting lecturers have primarily spoken to faculty and graduate students, Prabhu shared that “that's not going to be the case with this event.” He said that the organization will host designated networking opportunities with speakers.
In an interview with the Cornell Chronicle, Prof. Valla Fatemi, applied and engineering physics, said Martinis’ visit will “[give] Cornell students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to hear directly from one of the field’s most influential researchers.”
Fatemi added that the production of new quantum technologies today brings forth “an enormously exciting time.”
Prabhu said the new lecture series will help push CURB’s goal to connect undergraduate students with “the most brilliant minds from across the world.” He said Martinis represents this for physics, and the second lecturer of the series, Jefferson Cowie, John L. Seigenthaler chair professor of history at Vanderbilt University, represents this for the field of history. Cowie will speak at Cornell on April 24, according to Prabhu.
CURB hopes the lecture series will inspire undergraduate students by showing them what the “frontier” of their chosen field looks like, Prabhu said. Part of the series’ purpose is to exhibit “how exciting” and “rewarding” it can be to be at the forefront of a field, he added.
“One of the Cornell students in the audience might be standing in Professor Martini’s shoes a few years down the line, hopefully,” Prabhu said. “That's the seed that we want to grow.”
Shubha Gautam is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a senior writer for the News department and can be reached at sgautam@cornellsun.com.
