Stephanie Wehner facts for kids

Stephanie Dorothea Christine Wehner was born in Würzburg, Germany, on May 8, 1977. She is a brilliant scientist who works as a physicist and a computer scientist.

Today, she leads a big project at QuTech in the Netherlands. This project is called the Quantum Internet and Networked Computing initiative. Her main work is in quantum cryptography and quantum communications. These are special ways to send secret messages and information using tiny particles. She also helped create a new idea called the noisy-storage model in quantum cryptography.

With another scientist, Jonathan Oppenheim, she found something important. They learned that strange connections between tiny particles, called "non-locality," are limited. This limit is due to a rule called the uncertainty principle. It means you can't know everything about a tiny particle at the same time.

Early Life and Studies

Stephanie Wehner studied at the University of Amsterdam. She earned her Ph.D. at CWI, which is a research center for math and computer science. After that, she moved to Caltech in the United States. There, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher with John Preskill. This means she did advanced research after getting her Ph.D.

Before her quantum work, Wehner was involved in computer security. She worked on things like kernel rootkits. She was also a professional hacker. This means she was very skilled at understanding how computer systems work. She could find ways to make them better or fix problems.

Her Research Journey

From 2010 to 2014, Stephanie Wehner was a professor in Singapore. She worked at the National University of Singapore and the Centre for Quantum Technologies.

In 2014, she joined QuTech at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. By 2016, she became an Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor there. This is a very special title for top researchers.

QCRYPT Conference

In 2011, Stephanie Wehner and other scientists started something new. They created the QCRYPT conference series. A conference is a big meeting where scientists share their latest discoveries. This conference focuses on quantum cryptography. The most recent QCRYPT conference was held in Shanghai, China.

Quantum Internet Alliance

Stephanie Wehner is also the leader of the Quantum Internet Alliance. This group received ten million Euros from the European Commission in 2018. This money helps them build a quantum internet.

Wehner said that this funding helps them move faster. It helps Europe stay at the front of this exciting new field. A quantum internet could change how we send information, making it super secure.

Awards and Recognition

Stephanie Wehner has received important awards for her work. In 2019, she was given the Ammodo Science Award. In 2022, she was chosen to join the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a great honor for scientists in the Netherlands.