Stephanie Wehner

Timeline

1. 1977–2008

   From hacking to a doctorate

   Born in Würzburg in 1977, she works for the Dutch internet provider XS4ALL before computer science study at the University of Amsterdam, and during that study she works as an ethical hacker for ITSX. In 2008 she receives a doctorate in quantum cryptography from CWI. Harry Buhrman advises the thesis Cryptography in a Quantum World.

2. 2008–2010

   Noisy storage at Caltech

   In 2008 she introduces the noisy-storage model in quantum cryptography. She works as a postdoctoral researcher with John Preskill at Caltech and joins the National University of Singapore in 2010.

3. 2010–2014

   A group in Singapore

   From 2010 to 2014 she is an assistant professor and later an associate professor of computer science at the National University of Singapore, and a principal investigator at the Centre for Quantum Technologies. In 2010 she and Jonathan Oppenheim show in Science that the uncertainty principle limits non-locality in quantum mechanics. In 2011 she is one of the initiators of QCRYPT, which becomes the largest conference on quantum cryptography.

4. 2014–2016

   Professor at QuTech

   In 2014 she starts as associate professor at QuTech, Delft University of Technology. A 2015 Nature paper she co-authors reports a loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres. In 2016 she becomes Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor at Delft.

5. 2017–2018

   A quantum internet roadmap

   In 2017 she co-founds the Quantum Internet Alliance to build a prototype quantum internet and serves as its director. With Elkouss and Hanson, she publishes Quantum Internet: A vision for the road ahead in Science in 2018.

6. 2019–2022

   Ammodo award and KNAW

   The Ammodo Science Award comes in 2019. In 2022 the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences elects her as a member.

7. 2025

   QNodeOS and a Körber Prize

   In 2025 she receives the Körber European Science Prize, a €1 million award for quantum internet research. QNodeOS, the first operating system designed for quantum networks, is published in Nature in 2025, and she leads the study.

8. As of October 2026

   Professor and alliance director

   She is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor in quantum information at Delft University of Technology and QuTech, and director of the European Quantum Internet Alliance.