Congress Chair
University of Sydney

John Bartholomew is an Associate Professor of Experimental Quantum Science and Director of the Quantum Integration Laboratory at the University of Sydney. His team is engineering quantum technology for computing and metrology based on optically addressable spins in solids, including Er3+ ions in insulators and semiconductors. Prior to joining the School of Physics at USYD he held research positions at Caltech, Chimie Paristech, and the Australian National University (PhD 2014). John was heavily involved in the establishment of the Sydney Quantum Academy, and previously served as a Deputy Director of the Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems.

Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Sydney

Archil Kobakhidze is a Professor of Theoretical Physics with research interests in particle physics, cosmology, and gravity. He obtained his PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics from Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in 1997, after which he held research appointments at leading institutions across Europe and the United States. In 2012, he joined the University of Sydney, where he established the Theoretical Particle Physics Group.

University of Sydney

Sergio Leon-Saval is a Professor at the School of Physics in the University of Sydney and Associate Head School Strategic Partnerships and External Engagements. He was awarded his PhD by the University of Bath, UK, in 2006. In 2007, he joined the University of Sydney where he is now Director of the Sydney Astrophotonics Instrumentation Laboratory (SAIL), and Director of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS), and Associate Academic Director of the Research and Prototyping Foundry. Prof Leon-Saval has more than 16 years of experience in the research area of photonics. He has made breakthrough contributions in the field of specialty optical fibres, astrophotonics and optical instrumentation systems. He has published over 100 international refereed journals and more than 280 conference papers since 2004 with over 11000 citations, and a h-index of 50. Prof Leon-Saval has been a member of technical program and management committees on more than 14 international conferences. He is a Fellow of Optica, and Council Member of the Australian and New Zealand Optical Society (ANZOS). He was the 2019 recipient of the ANZOS John Love Award, that recognizes innovations and technical advances in the field of optics.

President, Australian Institute of Physics

Dr Stuart Midgley has over 25 years of experience in high-performance computing as a user, application developer, tool developer, system administrator and system architect. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Western Australia.

University of New South Wales

Professor Susan Coppersmith is a theoretical condensed matter physicist who has made substantial contributions to the understanding of a broad range of subjects, including glasses, biominerals, granular materials, and quantum computers. Her honors include fellowship in the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Institute of Physics, and the Royal Society of New South Wales, as well as the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and membership in the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Susan is currently the Vice President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

University of Melbourne

Professor Nicole Bell is a theoretical physicist at the University of Melbourne. Her research lies at the interface of elementary particle physics with astrophysics and cosmology. She leads the Theory Program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, and is a past- President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

Professor Bell completed her PhD in 2001 at the University of Melbourne and subsequently held a postdoctoral appointment in the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), USA from 20012004, followed by a prestigious Sherman Fairchild Prize Fellowship with the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory and the Theoretical Astrophysics (TAPIR) group at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She commenced a continuing appointment at the University of Melbourne in 2007.

Her current research interests include: dark matter; neutrino physics; the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry; particle and astroparticle phenomenology; particle physics beyond the Standard Model. She has received numerous research grants including an ARC Future Fellowship for work at the cosmic and energy frontiers, and was a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP).

University of New South Wales

Julian is a theoretical physicist working mainly in atomic physics, with crossover to nuclear physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Much of Julian's work is dedicated to low-energy searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. This field uses precision experiments in atoms and molecules to search for new particles and forces, test whether the fundamental constants change over time, and measure violations of fundamental symmetries. It complements high-energy experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider. As a quantum mechanic, Julian is interested in atomic many-body theory and the cross-over to many-body quantum chaos.

He developed the atomic many-body code AMBiT, which has been instrumental in determining properties of atomic transitions such as isotope shift and sensitivity to variation of fundamental constants. It also enabled the discovery of optical transitions in highly-charged ions, which are being used to develop atomic clocks of extremely high accuracy and high sensitivity to potential variations in the fine-structure constant.

University of Sydney

Dr Manisha Caleb is a radio astronomer at the University of Sydney specialising in radio transients. Her research combines large-scale survey observations, time-domain analysis, and multi-wavelength follow-up to constrain the physical mechanisms and progenitor models of the enigmatic fast radio bursts and long-period radio transients. Her work aims to use fast radio transients as probes of extreme astrophysical environments and the cosmic baryon distribution. She is an active member of major international collaborations, including the Square Kilometre Array, and leads efforts to develop observational strategies and data pipelines for next-generation radio experiments.

University of New South Wales

Dr Maja Cassidy is a Senior Lecturer, ARC DECRA Fellow and Scientia Fellow in the School of Physics. Her research focuses on developing new technologies that will be integrated into future quantum computing and sensor systems. She completed a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Hons. 1) at UNSW as a Coop scholar before moving to Harvard University, where she undertook a masters and PhD in Applied Physics. After a postdoctoral fellowship at TU Delft/QuTech, she returned to Australia where she spent 5 years as a Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Quantum, where she led quantum hardware integration. Maja joined UNSW at the end of 2022, where she leads the QMD lab, and teaches the 3rd year course Quantum Physics of Solids and Devices. She is the work package leader for quantum hardware and member of the executive for the ARC training center for Future Leaders in Quantum Computing, and the special projects officer for industry engagement for the Australian Institute of Physics.

Tom is an education focused lecturer at UNSW, with a PhD in Optical Tweezers. Tom's focus is on laboratory education and skills development, as well as student equity and wellbeing.

Senior Lecturer
School of Physics, University of Sydney

Dr Theresa Fruth is an experimentalist in Astroparticle Physics and an expert in Dark Matter direct detection. I joined the University of Sydney as lecturer in October 2022. Dr Fruth received her DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2019 following work on monitoring sensors and PMT studies for the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter search. They continued my research on the LZ experiment as post-doctoral researcher at University College London (UCL), contributing to commissioning and first science exploitation of the detector. At the University of Sydney Dr Fruth is working on current dark matter direct detection experiments, while also addressing challenges for next generation detectors. I am part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

University of Queensland

Jacinda is a theoretical physicist focusing on the development and application of precision atomic theory applied to tests of the Standard Model and searches for new physics, as well as to probes of nuclear structure. She completed her PhD at UNSW in 2004, has worked at University of Alberta, UNSW, University of Sydney, and joined UQ in 2018. She has held several fellowships, including most recently an ARC Future Fellowship. Currently Jacinda chairs the Theoretical Physics topical group of the Australian Institute of Physics.

Larissa Huston is a Research Scientist at CSIRO. Larissa is an experimental physicist whose research focuses on developing electromagnetic sensors for industrial applications in the mining industry. She joined CSIRO as a postdoctoral fellow following a postdoctoral appointment at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Larissa received her PhD in physics from the Australian National University, where she studied the behaviour of silicon and germanium under extreme pressure.

Australian Institute of Physics, Chair, NSW Branch

A/Prof. Karen Livesey is the NSW chair of the Australian Institute of Physics. She has won the AIP's Women in Physics medal (2023) and an Emmy Noether Fellowship in Canada (2019) for her research on magnetic materials. Her excellent communication of physics has been awarded with the NSW AIP Community Outreach Award (2024), and a Universities Australia Citation for teaching (2023).

Senior Lecturer
University of Queensland, Australia

Research in theoretical atomic physics and astroparticle phenomenology, with a focus on high-precision atomic structure calculations and how atomic processes can be used for testing fundamental theories, probing for physics beyond the standard model, and searching for dark matter.

University of Newcastle

Dr Lachlan Rogers is a senior lecturer and experimental physicist at the University of Newcastle. His research specialises in quantum architectures in diamond, with expertise in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres and other quantum emitters. He is a co-founder of Redback Systems, a start-up producing devices for ultra-high resolution optical spectroscopy. He was awarded an ARC DECRA Fellowship (2017–2020) and in 2025 was named on the UNESCO Quantum 100 list in recognition of his contributions to quantum science. An enthusiastic communicator of quantum physics, Dr Rogers presented two high-profile public events during the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (2025) and produces and co-hosts the Clear as Quantum podcast.

University of New South Wales Lecturer: The University of New South Wales (2024 -Present). Honorary Junior Fellow : Asia Pacific Centre for Theoretical Physics (2023-2028). Research Associate : University of Adelaide (2022-2023), Adelaide Research Assistant : University of California, San Diego (2019-2021) Post-Doctoral Fellow : Michigan State University (2017-2019), USA PhD: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai India (2014) Post Doctoral Fellow: CNRS, France (2104-2016)

Dipan research lies in the interface of theoretical particle physics and cosmology, including understanding and constructing theories of physics beyond standard model, the observable consequences at High Energy colliders, as well as their imprints on cosmological observations in the early Universe. I am a member of the Australian Consortium for the Cherenkov Telescope Array, an honorary junior fellow of the Asia Pacific Centre for theoretical physics, an executive member of the LHC dark matter working group.

University of Sydney

Professor Manjula Sharma, a leading science educator, has been involved in school and university curriculum matters for several decades including serving as Chief Examiner for NSW HSC Physics. She is currently Chair of Commission C14 on Physics Education of IUPAP. She served as Director of the STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy and has supervised outstanding PhD candidates including Dr Derek Muller creator of YouTube channel Veritasium. Her work has been recognised through various awards and she is a Principal Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics and American Association of Physics Teachers, and Honorary Fellow of the Teacher’s Guild of New South Wales.

Infleqtion Australia

Behnam Tonekaboni is a theoretical quantum physicist and the Lead Quantum Software Engineer at Infleqtion Australia. He completed his PhD at The University of Queensland, where he worked on a range of quantum technologies, including atom interferometer-based sensing devices, quantum heat engines, and quantum batteries.

He subsequently held a postdoctoral research position at Griffith University, focusing on the quantum control of qubits for the detection, characterization, and mitigation of noise in quantum computing devices. He later worked as a Research Scientist at CSIRO, where his research centered on quantum algorithms.

In his current role at Infleqtion, Behnam works on quantum algorithms as well as theoretical approaches to improve the sensitivity of quantum sensing devices. His expertise sits at the intersection of quantum information, quantum computing, and quantum sensing.

University of New South Wales

Oleg Tretiakov received his PhD in Physics from Duke University (USA) and is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Physics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, where he leads the Topological Spintronics and Quantum Materials research group. His research focuses on topological solitons in magnetic systems, such as skyrmions and bimerons; spin-transfer and spin–orbit torques; and topological antiferromagnetic spintronics, including non-collinear antiferromagnets. Additional interests include thermoelectrics based on low-dimensional topological materials and strongly correlated systems with spin–orbit coupling. Prior to joining UNSW as a Senior Lecturer in 2019, he was an Assistant Professor at Tohoku University, Japan (2012–2019). He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Physics.