The physicist Oriol Romero-Isart, specialist in quantum optics, returns to Catalonia after 16 years in research centers in Germany and Austria as the new director of the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Castelldefels. He comes from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) based in Innsbruck (Austria), where he is deputy director and directs a research group in theoretical quantum physics.
He will take over from Lluís Torner, who has directed the ICFO since its foundation in 2002, and who had communicated a few months ago his decision to hand over the baton. According to Torner, “the ICFO has achieved the objectives we had set for ourselves and needs new impetus for the next ten years.”
Romero-Isart will join on May 1 and, during the first four months, will work alongside Lluís Torner to facilitate the transition in the direction of ICFO. As of September 1, he will assume full management of the institute.
Its objective, declares the new director, is to “consolidate the growth of ICFO, which has achieved something extraordinary: growing in size and excellence at the same time.” With 25 research groups, a total of 400 scientists and eleven spin-offs, the institute has become an international reference in photonic sciences.
Like other directors of scientific centers, he will combine the management of the institute with the direction of his own research group. He arrives as coordinator of a European project to explore the limits of the quantum world funded with thirteen million euros by the European Research Council (ERC).
Torner, for his part, plans to stay at ICFO as director of its theoretical photonics research group.
Romero-Isart has been chosen through an international public call, and proposed among the different candidates by a selection committee that was charged with the task of finding the ideal person to direct the ICFO. His appointment, approved on February 14 by the institute’s board of trustees, is for a four-year term, renewable for another four.
He arrives at ICFO hired by the Icrea institution, the instrument available to the Generalitat to attract researchers with internationally competitive salaries.
“We are incorporating young talent and an accredited and recognized researcher”, declares Joaquim Nadal, Councilor for Research and Universities and president of the ICFO Board of Trustees. “This incorporation is part of the policy of generational relief. It is a mandate to give a new boost to a world-leading institute in photonics and quantum”.
Born in Terrassa in 1981, Romero-Isart studied Physics and a doctorate at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). In 2009 he joined the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching (Germany), directed by the Spanish physicist Ignacio Cirac, where he remained for four years. In 2013 he was appointed head of the research group at the IQOQI institute in Innsbruck. Since then he has also been a professor of theoretical quantum physics at the University of Innsbruck.
He has received, among others, the National Prize for New Researcher in Theoretical Physics, awarded by the BBVA Foundation and the Royal Spanish Society of Physics, and the European Prize for Young Researcher in Quantum Information Processing and Communication.
As part of the selection process for the new director, candidates were asked to outline their vision for the future of the institute. “We must enhance the strengths of the ICFO,” declares Romero-Isart. Among them, she highlights “the favorable conditions so that scientists can concentrate on research; the transfer of knowledge and technology to industry; talent development; the culture of excellence, which is ICFO’s hallmark; and national and international visibility.”