I am the Director of the Center for Quantum Networks, a ten-year National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center awarded in 2020, aimed at laying the foundations of the quantum internet. I am a Professor with the College of Optical Sciences at University of Arizona, in Tucson AZ. My background lies at the intersection of information theory and quantum optics. I earned my B.Tech. (2002) in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur; and my S.M. (2004) and Ph.D. (2008) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge MA. Prior to joining University of Arizona in 2017, I was a Lead Scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies, in Cambridge MA, where I worked for 9 years. I joined BBN’s Advanced Networking business unit as Scientist in 2008, and was part of the initial team that founded the Quantum Information Processing group in 2009. I have a Bachelor level diploma in music (1997), “Sangeet Prabhakar”, in Hindustani music on violin, from Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad, India.

My research interests lie in investigating ways to quantify and attain the fundamental quantum-physics-driven limits on photonic information processing, with applications to laser-modulated classical data communications, quantum-secured and entanglement-enhanced communications, designing quantum repeaters for fault-tolerant long-distance high-rate quantum communications, photonic sensors, optical imaging with applications in astronomy and microscopy, and all-photonic quantum computing. I am also interested in network science, and network information and communication theory; in leveraging decades of research in classical network theory to design and build quantum networks paving the way eventually to the quantum upgraded internet: a global network of networks that will connect various quantum-powered gadgets (computers, sensors, processors, hand-held devices, etc.) through quantum-equipped links that can reliably transmit quantum information simultaneously among multiple users, serving diverse applications.