Dirk Robert Englund received his BS in Physics from Caltech in 2002. Following a Fulbright year at TU Eindhoven, he earned an MS in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics in 2008, both from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 2010, when he started his group as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Applied Physics at Columbia University. In 2013, he joined the faculty of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Prof. Englund’s research focuses on semiconductor quantum devices and systems for quantum communications, quantum sensing, and quantum-enhanced sensing. Specific approaches include quantum secure communications; quantum repeaters based on semiconductor spin quantum memories; spin-based precision sensors including magnetometers and electrometers; and new materials such as graphene and other 2D materials for quantum light sources and quantum-limited detectors.

He is a Senior Member of OSA and recipient of the 2017 Adolph Lomb Medal “for pioneering contributions to scalable solid-state quantum memories in nitrogen-vacancy diamond, high-dimensional quantum key distribution, and photonic integrated circuits for quantum communication and computation.”