Public Lecture: Panel Discussion

Kim Hill is a broadcaster and host of RNZ National's Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. Her awards include the Association for International Broadcasting’s International Radio Personality of the Year, and a Gold Radio Award for Best Radio Personality Network/Syndicated at the International Radio Program Awards. In 2006, Hill hosted ‘Are Angels OK’, a series of programmes where artists, writers, and physicists discussed the intersection between physics and the arts. Her monthly radio conversations between 2004 and 2007 with physicist Paul Callaghan were published as ‘As Far As We Know’.

Professor Doherty is recognised internationally for his innovative contributions to theoretical physics. He is one of the pioneers of the field of quantum control and has made seminal contributions to quantum information theory. In quantum control, he was the first to apply ideas from classical control which is ubiquitous from aircraft to precision measurement to the science of quantum systems. This work was a very early forerunner of the current experimental and theoretical programs in the control of quantum systems. Professor Doherty's work emphasised that adaptability and feedback would be essential to any quantum technology and was ahead of its time in emphasising the need to begin engineering quantum systems. Professor Doherty is well known for his extensive collaborations with experimentalists in wide range of systems from quantum optics, including cavity QED and optomechanical systems, to condensed matter, including circuit QED and semiconductor quantum dots.