Gilles Brassard

Professor of computer science at the Université de Montréal since 1979, Gilles Brassard laid the foundations of quantum cryptography at a time when nobody could have predicted that the quantum information revolution would usher in a multi-billion-dollar industry, much less that the ACM would grant him and Charles H. Bennett the Turing Award forty-four years after rejecting their first paper on this topic. They are also among the inventors of quantum teleportation. A Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Officer of the Order of Canada and Ordre national du Québec, his accolades include the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Micius Quantum Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, in addition to the Turing Award. He has been granted honorary doctorates from ETH Zürich, the University of Ottawa, Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, and the University of Waterloo.