Vedika Khemani
Vedika Khemani is a theoretical physicist and Associate Professor at Stanford University. Her research lies at the intersection of many-body quantum condensed matter physics and quantum information theory.
Early life and education
Khemani was born in India and was educated through high-school at La Martiniere Calcutta. She moved to the United States to study physics at Harvey Mudd College, where she completed a senior thesis on gravitational holography. Her undergraduate thesis was awarded the Thomas Benjamin Brown Memorial Award. Alongside her physics courses, Khemani completed courses in mathematics, computer science, economics, linguistics and creative writing. She also took part in robotics programs and competed at national robotics competitions.After completing her undergraduate degree in 2010, she went on to graduate studies at Princeton University. There, she worked with doctoral advisor Shivaji Sondhi. Following her PhD studies, Khemani was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.
Research and career
Khemani's research focuses on non-equilibrium many-body quantum dynamics. As part of her doctoral research, Khemani identified a novel non-equilibrium phase of matter known as a Floquet time-crystal. Such crystals demonstrate spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry. In conventional crystals, atoms are arranged in regular and ordered patterns, whereas in time crystals they are arranged in both space and time.Awards and honours
- 2024 Infosys Prize in Physical Sciences
- 2022 Breakthrough New Horizons in Physics Prize
- 2020 Department of Physics at the University of Illinois McMillan Award
- 2020 American Physical Society George E. Valley Jr. Prize
- 2020 United States Department of Energy Early Career Award
- 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship