ES Fellowship Programme

Jacob Daniel Biamonte is an American physicist and theoretical computer scientist specializing in quantum information theory and quantum computing. He is a Professor at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) in Montreal, Canada, and holds the Quebec Ministry Research Excellence Chair in Quantum Computing. Biamonte earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. His research contributions include establishing universality in adiabatic and variational quantum computing models and advancing quantum machine learning and tensor network methods. He has been recognized with the USERN Medal in Formal Sciences and elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Guido Caldarelli is a Full Professor of Theoretical Physics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Director of the Institute of Complex Systems at the Italian National Research Council (CNR). He earned his Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from SISSA in Trieste and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on complex networks, including their applications in finance, and he has coordinated several European projects in this field. Caldarelli has published extensively and is the author of Scale-Free Networks: Complex Webs in Nature and Technology.

Andrea Baronchelli is a Professor of Complexity Science at City, University of London, and a Research Associate at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. His research focuses on understanding how humans and artificial agents behave in decentralized socio-technical systems, including blockchain ecosystems, social media, and AI. He employs mathematical modeling, data science, and lab experiments to study topics such as coordination in social networks, information diffusion, social polarization, and the dynamics of collective behavior tipping points. His work has been published in leading journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS, and has received support from organizations including UKRI, PayPal, and the UK Government.

Prof. Sanjam Garg is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in cryptography and its applications to security and privacy. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 and his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2008. Prof. Garg is the recipient of various honors such as the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, the Sloan Research Fellowship and the IIT Delhi Graduates of the Last Decade Award. Prof. Garg's research has been recognized with a test of time award at FOCS 2023, and best paper awards at EUROCRYPT 2013, CRYPTO 2017 and EUROCRYPT 2018. Past students and postdoctoral researchers from Prof. Garg's research group are now faculty/researchers at top institutions, such as Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Toronto, Microsoft Research, etc.

Nicola Dimitri is Full Professor of Economics at the University of Siena and a Life Member of Clare Hall College, Cambridge. He is affiliated with the Center for Blockchain Technologies at University College London and the Blockchain Center at the University of Zurich. His expertise includes procurement, auctions, market design, game and contract theory, economics of innovation, health economics, and blockchain. He has served as Deputy Rector and Head of the Economics Department at Siena, Chair in Innovation Procurement at Maastricht School of Management, and consultant to national and international institutions. He has published extensively and co-edited the Handbook of Public Procurement and a volume on Artificial Intelligence and Economics.

Yebo Feng is a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, specialising in computer security and privacy. His work focuses on network security, blockchain and DeFi security, DDoS defence, and machine learning applications in security. He has received multiple awards for his research and contributes regularly to leading journals and conferences in the field. He also serves on programme committees and editorial boards for several top-tier security conferences and journals. His work aims to make digital systems more secure, resilient, and trustworthy.

Luciano Pietronero is an Italian physicist and professor of condensed matter physics at Sapienza University of Rome. He founded and directed the Institute for Complex Systems at the Italian National Research Council, leading a large network of researchers across the country. His work spans statistical physics, fractal growth, high-temperature superconductivity, self-organized criticality, cosmology, quantitative finance, and complexity economics. He has published extensively, edited influential scientific volumes, and received major honours including the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of Academia Europaea, and serves as President of the Enrico Fermi Research Center.

Prof Yang You obtained his PhD degree in Economics from Harvard University in 2021. He also holds Bachelors in Mathematics and Economics from Tsinghua University. Prior to joining HKU, he worked for Tower Research Capital as quant trader and interned at Facebook Libra. Yang’s research interest lies in Fintech, Economics of Internet, Alternative data & asset prices, Culture & Institution, and Chinese Economy.