CURRICULUM VITAE Iannis K. Kominis Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion 71103 Greece Email: [email protected] Research Group Website: http://www.quantumbiology.gr 1. BIOGRAPHIC DATA Place - Date of Birth Athens, 1972 High-school German School of Athens, Dörpfeldgymnasium, Abitur Military Service Greek Air Force, 2001 – 2002 Languages Greek (native), English (fluent), German (fluent) 2. ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS 2018 – present Associate Professor 2013 – 2018 Tenured Assistant Professor 2009 – 2013 Assistant Professor 2004 – 2009 Lecturer Department of Physics, University of Crete, Greece 2002 – 2003 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 2002 – 2002 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physics, Princeton University 1996 – 2000 Research Assistant, Department of Physics, Princeton University 3. ACADEMIC VISITS 2015 Kastler Brossel Laboratory, Ecole Normale Superieure 2015 Laboratory of Laser Physics, University of Paris 13, 2015 Department of Chemistry, University of Konstanz 2015 Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Leipzig University 2014 Kastler Brossel Laboratory, Ecole Normale Superieure 2012 Department of Physics, Princeton University 2008 Department of Physics, University of Fribourg 4. ACADEMIC EDUCATION 1996 – 2000 PhD, Physics, Princeton University, USA Thesis Title: Measurement of the Neutron (3He) Spin Structure at Low Q2 and the Extended Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn Sum Rule Supervisor: Prof. G. D. Cates 1990 – 1996 BS, MS, Electrical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece (GPA=8.6/10). 1993 Advanced Physics School, N.C.S.R. Demokritos, Athens, Greece 1994 Advanced Physics School, University of Crete, Greece 1995 Solid State NMR Group, University of Leipzig, Germany 1997 US Particle Accelerator School, University of California at Berkeley, USA 1997 L3 Collaboration, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland 1999 US Particle Accelerator School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA 5. RESEARCH INTERESTS § Spin-exchange Optical Pumping – spin-polarized noble gases § Nucleon Spin Structure – high energy polarized electron scattering off polarized 3He § Precision Tests of the Electroweak Interaction – laser cooling and trapping of radioactive atoms § Quantum Metrology – ultrasensitive atomic magnetometers § Quantum Noise – spin noise and spin-squeezing in atomic magnetometers, spin noise in coupled systems § Quantum Biology – spin chemistry, avian compass, biochemical magnetometers, quantum measurement theory in radical-ion-pair reactions, photosynthesis, light harvesting, charge and spin transport in photosynthetic reaction centers, chemically induced dynamic nuclear polarization § Quantum Vision – quantum biometrics with photon counting by the retina, quantum optical probes of human vision 6. RESEARCH DESCRIPTION PhD Research at Princeton Under the supervision of Prof. Cates I developed a new polarized 3He target facility that was used at the TJNAF accelerator for the first low- energy polarized-electron polarized-3He scattering experiments, which tested of QCD sum rules at the transition regime between the hadronic and the quark degrees of freedom. As a direct result of my efforts, a successful 3He program was launched at TJNAF, with several scattering experiments successfully completed. Postdoctoral Research at Princeton Under the guidance of Prof. Romalis I developed a new atomic magnetometer that set a record sensitivity in detecting feeble magnetic fields. Its performance has surpassed SQUID magnetometers which dominated sensitive magnetometry for the last 30 years. As stated by U.C. Berkeley Prof. D. Budker (Nature 422, 574, 2003), “The work of Kominis et al. continues a productive tradition in atomic physics of synergy between fundamental and applied science”. Postdoctoral Research at Berkeley Under the guidance of Prof. Freedman and Dr. Vetter I worked on laser cooling and trapping of radioactive atoms in order to perform sensitive tests of the Standard Model of weak interactions. In parallel I also worked on a project to laser cool ions in a superconducting Penning trap. Independent PI Research at the University of Crete Our laboratory was the first in Greece to deal with experiments in the field of quantum optics and atomic physics. We have pursued several studies, experimental and theoretical, related to the quantum physics of atomic magnetometers. In particular, we have studied in detail spin noise in atomic vapors and its various manifestations. The most recent study concerns spin noise of a dual-species vapor, where we have shown that at low magnetic field, spin-exchange collisions spontaneously produce spin-noise correlations in the two atomic species. Pioneering work on quantum biology Since 2008 I have been working on quantum biology, a new synthesis of quantum science with the complexity of biological systems. Along with a few colleagues worldwide, I have pioneered this field, demonstrating that there are certain biological systems exhibiting quantum effects ordinarily associated with carefully controlled quantum systems pertaining to quantum information processing. 7. QUANTUM BIOLOGY Quantum Biology is an emerging interdisciplinary field synthesizing quantum optics and quantum information science with biological/biochemical systems. Quantum biology has in the last ten years made the case that quantum coherence effects could be relevant in certain biological processes. One of them is excitation energy transport in the light-harvesting process of photosynthesis. Another concerns the spin-dependent biochemical reactions studied in spin chemistry, radical-ion-pair reactions. These reactions are present in the photosynthetic reaction center and have been studied with NMR in order to dark elucidate the structure of reaction centers, and the dynamics of charge and spin transport therein. Furthermore, there is now ample evidence supporting light Schulten's 1970s conjecture that radical-pair reactions underlie the avian magnetic compass. Although spin chemistry is a field dating to the 1960's and radical-pair reactions have been studied since then, their quantum physical underpinnings were first unraveled by bounds on the information extraction by a quantum my group in 2008. This is evidenced by the timeline of measurement. We have shown that Haberkorn's theory publications on the APS server and arXiv. Several follows as a limiting case of our new theory in the regime of quantum optics groups joined this effort after we first strong spin-relaxation, i.e. when quantum coherence effects introduced the quantum optics (Lindblad formalism) are quickly damped relative to the reaction time. description of radical-pair reactions, rendering the radical- pair mechanism the first biological system where the tools Besides the avian compass, a major biological process of quantum optics, quantum metrology and quantum governed by the radical-pair mechanism is the spin information can be fruitfully applied. transport in photosynthetic reaction centers. We have shown that a large mass of experimental data on the In particular, the radical-pair mechanism was developed phenomenon of Chemically Induced Dynamic Nuclear in the 1960's and since then has been the cornerstone of Polarization (CIDNP) monitoring this spin transport cannot spin chemistry, which deals with the effect of electron and be understood within Haberkorn's approach. nuclear spins on chemical reactions. The foundational theory of spin chemistry is a master equation, attributed We have also demonstrated the violation of entropy bounds to Haberkorn's 1976 paper, accounting for the time by Haberkorn's theory, formally proving that the traditional evolution of the radical-pair's spin state density matrix. theory of spin chemistry is inadequate. Our theory satisfies these bounds, leading to the prediction of novel magnetic Since 2008, we have been challenging the theoretical field effects based on the information extracted from the foundation of spin chemistry, showing that Haberkorn's reaction, called Groenewold information. Moreover, we theory scrambles the fundamental quantum dynamics analyzed the quantum metrology aspect of the radical-pair underlying the radical-pair mechanism, and bringing mechanism, establishing the fundamental magnetic about a paradigm shift in the understanding of these spin- sensitivity of this new kind of biochemical magnetometer. dependent biochemical reactions. Concomitantly, we were the first to demonstrate that the radical-pair mechanism is In summary, my work has made a strong case for the a vivid paradigm for the emerging field of quantum new field of quantum biology, demonstrating the biology. This is because in order to establish a physically existence of a chemical system exhibiting a range of sound foundation of spin chemistry we had to introduce effects, and requiring for its understanding the whole several concepts of quantum information science, namely conceptual toolset, of quantum information science. At quantum measurements and measurement-induced the same time, my work has first challenged and then decoherence, quantifiers of quantum coherence, quantum completely reshaped the foundation of spin chemistry, a trajectories, the quantum Zeno effect, the concept of field of physical chemistry studying the role of spin quantum retrodiction borrowed from quantum degrees of freedom in chemical reactions. communicatios, and most recently fundamental entropy 8. UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT SUPERVISION The following are undergraduate students that I have supervised and am currently supervising