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Dr Eva-Maria Graefe, Department of Mathematics

Winner of the 2017 President’s Award for Outstanding Early Career Researcher

Dr Eva-Maria Graefe is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader in the Mathematical Physics Group. Dr Graefe joined Imperial as a Junior Research Fellow in 2010, and has since been supported by a number of research fellowships and built up her own research group.

A physicist by training, but now a mathematician, Dr Eva- Maria Graefe’s research focuses on quantum dynamics, in particular in the presence of losses and gains. Quantum mechanics seeks to understand the microscopic world of atoms, electrons and other tiny particles, which behave according to laws that are very different from the ones that govern our large-scale everyday world.

In recent years, scientists have realised that by engineering holes in quantum systems one can change their dynamics and design new technologies. Dr Graefe works to develop the theoretical models to describe and explore these leaky systems. This area of quantum physics has received considerable attention, but there is still much to be explored in its theory, experimentation and application.

Dr Graefe’s work focuses on the different ways that certain systems display chaos – traditionally defined as significant changes caused by small initial deviations. In this realm, the quantum nature of a system is of particular significance. The interplay of chaos and losses and gains has hitherto been little explored.