Professor Virginia (Gina) Lorenz joined the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, where her research group performs experiments in quantum optics and atomic, molecular and optical physics. Lorenz's research group currently focuses on a variety of areas in quantum optics: quantum networks, quantum memories, photonic quantum sources, quantum sensing. On November 4, 2023, in collaboration with other research teams and university and community partners, Lorenz launched the first publicly accessible quantum network. Her group investigates new sources of entangled photon pairs for use in quantum protocols. They are also developing a quantum memory capable of storing and retrieving THz bandwidth quantum states. Finally, her group studies quantum information theory to better understand and predict the limitations of sensing techniques in a wide range of applications.
She received her B.A. in physics magna cum laude and mathematics in 2001 and completed her Ph.D. in physics in 2007 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. From 2007-2009 she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the University of Oxford, where she worked on implementations of quantum memories in atomic and solid-state systems. From 2009-2014, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware.