Stephanie Wehner awarded the Körber Prize 2025

The Prize Winner

Stephanie Wehner is a physicist and computer scientist, and Director of the European Quantum Internet Alliance. Born in Germany in 1977, as a child she “became obsessed by communication,” says Wehner. In high school she learned that different computers could communicate with one another, and was inspired by a class trip to a research institute “where people exchanged information through the air optically – I found these things super-fascinating.”

Armed with a home computer and early modem, Wehner began exploring the then newly emerging technology of the Internet. “I was fascinated by how distinct entities or computers exchange information and interact with each other in order to jointly accomplish tasks and do useful things – without actually having a central plan.”

This interest saw Wehner become a Network Administrator in 1997 for Dutch internet service provider XS4ALL, before quitting in 1999 in order to study for a BSc – then later for an MSc – in computer science at the University of Amsterdam, learning further from working part-time alongside her undergraduate studies as an ethical hacker for IT security consulting company ITSX. Remaining in the same university, Wehner studied quantum cryptography for her PhD, which was awarded in 2008.

Her mix of quantum physics and computing skills led to a two-year postdoc in the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the United States, before she became an Assistant Professor, then in 2013 an Associate Professor, in the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. Wehner concurrently worked as a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore – a position she held until 2016. In 2014, Wehner moved back to The Netherlands to take an Associate Professor role in the research institute for quantum computing and quantum internet QuTech at Delft University of Technology, where she is now Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor in quantum information.

Wehner is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-founder of the largest international conference on quantum cryptography (QCRYPT). She is also a co-founder of the spinout Delft Networks, where she serves as a scientific advisor, and from 2018 to 2022 she served as Elected Science Vice Chair of the Science and Engineering Board of the EU Flagship on Quantum Technologies.

Alongside her research Wehner has spearheaded an online outreach project known as the Quantum Network Explorer (QNE). The QNE website allows both beginners and experts to explore a simulated quantum network and, she explains, will enable potential commercial and academic end-users to feed into the development of the quantum internet – an opportunity she considers “very important for the translation of this research into actual technology.”