Dr. Prineha Narang is a Professor in Physical Sciences at UCLA with an interdisciplinary group spanning areas of physics, chemistry, and engineering. Prior to moving to UCLA, she was an Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Science at Harvard University. Before starting on the Harvard faculty in 2017, Dr. Narang was an Environmental Fellow at HUCE, and worked as a research scholar in condensed matter theory in the Department of Physics at MIT. She received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech. Her group works on theoretical and computational quantum materials, non-equilibrium dynamics, and quantum information science. Narang’s work has been recognized by many awards and special designations, including the 2023 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award from the American Physical Society, 2023 ONR Young Investigator Award, 2022 Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society, Mildred Dresselhaus Prize, Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a Max Planck Sabbatical Award from the Max Planck Society, and the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Computational Physics all in 2021, an NSF CAREER Award in 2020, being named a Moore Inventor Fellow by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, a Top Innovator by MIT Tech Review (MIT TR35, )and a leading young scientist by the World Economic Forum in 2018. In 2017, she was named by Forbes Magazine on their “30under30” list for her work in atom-by-atom quantum engineering, that is, designing materials at the smallest scale, using single atoms, to enable the leap to quantum technologies. Dr. Narang has held leadership roles in a DOE EFRC ‘Photonics at Thermodynamic Limits’, DOE NQI Quantum Science Center, and the NSF ERC ‘Center for Quantum Networks’, among others. Her continued service to the community includes Chairing the Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting (2022) and the MRS-Kavli Foundation Future of Materials Workshop: Computational Materials Science (2021), as an as an Associate Editor at ACS Nano and Applied Physics Letters, organizing APS, Optica (OSA), and SPIE symposia, and most recently a leadership role in APS’ Division of Materials Physics.
Dr. Narang is also the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Aliro, a VC-backed US quantum network company. At Aliro, she spearheads the effort in quantum information, towards commercializing scalable quantum networks. Further, she has worked with various companies including Applied Materials and Northrop Grumman Corporation over the last years on building and expanding their quantum technology programs. Outside of science, she is an avid Ironman-triathlon racer and marathon runner. Time spent outdoors is important to her and here’s a Faculty Spotlight highlighting how she spends time outside the lab and an article by the Moore Foundation on “Beyond the Lab“.