The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s newest quantum faculty member has received one of his field’s highest honors. The American Physical Society (APS) announced this week that PME Asst. Prof. Ruben Verresen has been named the winner of the 2025 George E. Valley Jr. Prize, honored for his research in topological phases of matter.
“I feel honored that my colleagues appreciate my work. But I also immediately think of all my wonderful collaborators, without whom this work would not have happened,” Verresen said. “On a personal note, topological phases of matter constitute in my opinion one of the most beautiful topics in many-body physics and it was one of the key reasons I was drawn into this field and decided to do my PhD on such topics. I am happy to have been able to add a little extra piece to this evolving body of knowledge.”
Each year, APS awards the prize “to recognize an early-career individual for an outstanding scientific contribution to physics that is deemed to have significant potential for a dramatic impact on the field.”
PME Dean Nadya Mason said that describes Ruben Verresen precisely.
“Ruben is a brilliant researcher. The George E. Valley Jr. Prize celebrates the same qualities that make Ruben the perfect fit for PME – he's innovative, collaborative and focused on solving the world's great problems,” Mason said. “We are thrilled to welcome him as our newest faculty member at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. I look forward to seeing him take his research and impact to the next level.”
Verresen said he’s excited to take advantage of PME’s interdisciplinary approach, appreciating the collaborative relationships between research groups.
“At UChicago, and especially at the PME, there is a lot of attention to this interplay between fields, such as between many-body quantum physics and engineered quantum systems,” he said. “I am excited to see a lot of opportunities to collaborate across the aisle, both with regards to theory groups and experimental labs.”
Verresen said his new research group will look to collaborate with the quantum engineers bringing to life what was once just theory, with the goal to better understand quantum entangled states of matter and their potential applications.
“It is exciting to see all these quantum platforms grow, which feels like Christmas morning to us theorists since so many concepts can now be explored and probed,” he said.
Before joining UChicago PME in September, Verresen was most recently a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University in the group of Ashvin Vishwanath. He spent the first four years as a Harvard Quantum Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow and the last year with a joint postdoctoral appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He obtained his PhD in 2019 from the Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (Technical University of Dresden) advised by Frank Pollmann and Roderich Moessner.