Nir Bar-Gill joined the Hebrew University in July 2013 as a joint appointment between the Department of Applied Physics and the Racah Institute of Physics. His research aims to create a platform for both fundamental studies in quantum science and interdisciplinary applications. Specifically, he is researching the nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamonds. The insights derived from this research can serve as building blocks for quantum information processing, quantum sensing, quantum simulation of many-body physics, and quantum thermodynamics.

Bar-Gill completed his undergraduate studies in physics and electrical engineering (summa cum laude) and master’s degree in physics at the Technion. He completed his doctorate at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2009, studying utlracold atoms under the guidance of Prof. Nir Davidson and Prof. Gershon Kurizki, and received the Auto Schwartz fellowship for excellence in research and the Feinberg Dean’s prize for Ph.D. students.

Bar-Gill spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, working in Prof. Ronald Walsworth’s research group, where he made contributions to the understanding of nitrogen-​vacancy spin physics and to extending the nitrogen-​vacancy coherence time to nearly one second. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Minerva ARCHES award, the CIFAR-Azrieli global scholar fellowship, the ERC starting grant, and the Wolf Foundation’s Krill prize.