The Australian Academy of Science has pleasure in presenting the 2025 Lloyd Rees Lecture. Professor Lloyd Hollenberg FAA will give his lecture on Thursday 6 November 2025 at CSIRO in Clayton, Victoria.
Date: Thursday 6 November 2025
Time: 2.30pm–4.30pm AEDT (2.30pm for lecture, 3.30pm for afternoon tea)
Venue: Ian Wark Lecture Theatre, CSIRO, Research Way, Clayton, VIC
Cost: Free
Registrations: Registration is required; use the booking button (above right) to register for this event. Closer to the event, CSIRO staff will contact you to finalise the registration process and advise of access to the venue.
After many years of research and development, quantum computers are emerging from research labs around the world. Programmable quantum computers, such as those based on superconducting circuits and individual trapped atoms, can be accessed via the cloud. Meanwhile, the associated quantum algorithms, software and programming frameworks are developing rapidly. But what are quantum computers, and what are they good for? Where are they heading? Can we believe the hype? To address these questions, we will take a brief (personalised) tour through the world of quantum computers, covering the basics of their operation, current status and outlook for applications in areas such as chemistry and material science, bioinformatics, finance, and AI.
Professor Lloyd Hollenberg FAA completed his PhD in theoretical particle physics at the University of Melbourne in 1989 and was subsequently awarded a JSPS Fellowship at the KEK accelerator laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan. After his postdoctoral period he returned to the School of Physics to take up a research and teaching position. Lloyd’s early work in mathematical physics and lattice gauge theory was a natural starting point for his interest in quantum computing. Since 2001, Lloyd has been a driving force for the silicon quantum computer vision, providing theoretical underpinnings from device physics to quantum error correction and scale-up. He is an internationally known proponent of quantum technology, having made contributions in both theoretical quantum computing and experimental implementations of quantum sensing using spin qubits in semiconductors.
Lloyd has published more than 250 papers in refereed journals, including prestigious journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Physics, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials and Physical Review Letters. He was ranked 6th in the world for contributions to quantum computing in the 2001–10 Thomson Reuters census. Under his ARC Laureate Fellowship (2013–18) he developed quantum sensing and imaging technology that crosses the nano–bio divide. Lloyd has served on the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts and was Chair of the Physics, Chemistry and Geosciences panel in 2008. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2018.
In 1990, Sir Alan Walsh FAA proposed that the Australian Academy of Science initiate a series of lectures by distinguished researchers in chemical physics, to recognise the contributions of the late Dr A L G Rees FAA to science, industry and education.
Find out more about the Lloyd Rees Lecture series.
phannaford@swin.edu.au
(03) 9214 5164
phannaford@swin.edu.au
(03) 9214 5164
© 2025 Australian Academy of Science
