Wolfgang Ketterle

Wolfgang Ketterle has been the John D. MacArthur professor of physics at MIT since 1998. He leads an experimental research group in atomic physics with a focus on many-body physics with ultracold atoms and molecules. His observation of Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas in 1995 and the first realization of an atom laser in 1997 were recognized with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. Ketterle received a diploma from the Technical University of Munich (1982) and the Ph.D. in physics from the University of Munich (1986). After postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching and at the University of Heidelberg, he came to MIT as a postdoc in 1990 and joined the physics faculty in 1993. Since 2006, he is the director of the Center of Ultracold Atoms (until 2024), and Associate Director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics.