Keynote Speakers | WOLTE 2026 | Giardini Naxos, Sicily, Italy

- Professor of Quantum Physics, The University of Sydney
  Co-founder and CEO, Emergence Quantum
Cryogenic Electronics and Architectures for Scalable Quantum Technologies
David Reilly holds a Ph.D. in quantum device physics and led Microsoft’s quantum research in Australia from 2016 to 2024, where he pioneered scalable methods for controlling and reading out quantum systems. His work on cryogenic electronics has set new benchmarks in the development of quantum and energy-efficient computing technologies.
- Research Scientist, RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing
Scalable Superconducting Quantum Computer with Tileable Qubit Architecture
Shuhei Tamate's current research focuses on scalable circuit design and integration of superconducting qubit devices for building large-scale quantum computers.
- Research Fellow, Institute of Astrophysics-FORTH, Greece, and co-founder of C12 Quantum Electronics
Takis Kontos
The research of Takis Kontos is mainly based on the implementation of hybrid quantum circuits, aiming to reveal new states of matter or to exploit quantum mechanical properties of circuits. Takis Kontos is now focusing on the use of quantum sensing techniques with circuits in order to test dark matter paradigms such as axions or to measure other cosmological
signals.
- NWO-I/SRON Space research Organization Netherlands
Superconducting Transition-Edge Sensors for Applications in Space Astrophysics, Fusion Plasma and Particle Physics
Recently, Luciano Gottardi has been leading efforts to transfer the high-resolution X-ray spectrometer technology—developed for space applications—to new scientific frontiers, including laboratory astrophysics using advanced hot plasma sources, nuclear fusion plasma diagnostics and astroparticle physics.
- Senior Research Scientist, MIT Department of Physics
Jagadeesh Moodera
Dr. Moodera’s many years of research in the area of spin polarized tunneling led to the breakthrough in observing tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) at room temperature in magnetic tunnel junctions (1995). This resulted in a huge surge in this area of research, currently one of the most active areas. TMR effect is used in all ultra-high density magnetic data storage since about 2004, as well as for the development of non-volatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM).
- Director, Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale), Germany
Stuart Parkin
Stuart Parkin's research interests include spintronic materials and devices for advanced sensor, memory, and logic applications, oxide thin-film heterostructures, topological metals, exotic superconductors, and cognitive devices. Parkin’s discoveries in spintronics enabled a more than 10,000-fold increase in the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives.
For his work that thereby enabled the “big data” world of today, Parkin was awarded the Millennium Technology Prize from the Technology Academy Finland in 2014 and the King Faisal Prize for Science 2021 for his research into three distinct classes of spintronic memories.