PhD (Physics), UAntwerpen
MSc (Electrical Engineering), KULeuven
MSc (Applied Physics), TUDelft
Assistant Professor of Physics
PhD (Physics), UAntwerpen
MSc (Electrical Engineering), KULeuven
MSc (Applied Physics), TUDelft
Quantum dynamics of complex systems, quantum machine learning, optimal control theory, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics
I received my PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Antwerp, where I worked on path integral methods for quasi-probability distributions to study the dynamics of complex systems. Notable results include a rigorous derivation of the mobility of the optical polaron, settling a long-standing debate. I went on to do a postdoc with Anatoli Polkovnikov at Boston University, where we developed new numerical methods to simulate dynamics of many-body quantum systems. Fueled by recent advances in quantum technologies, we started working on optimal control theory and counter- diabatic driving, establishing a variational method to compute adiabatic gauge potentials for many-body systems and exploring reinforcement learning techniques to control cold- atom experiments. I joined Eugene Demler’s group at Harvard University, where I started to work more on developing applications for current quantum computing platforms. As of September 2020, I am faculty member at NYU’s center for quantum phenomena and hold a position as associate researcher at the Flatiron Institute (CCQ).
FWO Junior postdoctoral fellow (Boston University)
FWO Senior postdoctoral fellow (Harvard University)
D. Sels, H. Dashti, S. Mora, O. Demler, E. Demler, Quantum approximate Bayesian computation for NMR model inference, Nature Machine Intelligence 2, 396-402 (2020)
Doi: 10.1038/s42256-020-0198-x
A.G.R. Day, M. Bukov, P. Weinberg, P. Mehta, and D. Sels, Glassy Phase of Optimal Quantum Control, PRL 122, 020601, (2019)
Doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.020601
D. Sels, A. Polkovnikov, Minimizing irreversible losses in quantum systems by local counterdiabatic driving, PNAS, vol. 114 no. 20, E3909-E3916 (2017)
Doi:10.1073/pnas.1619826114