Mohammad Zahid Hasan (born 1971) is a Bangladeshi physicist and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. Hasan's research topics include quantum physics and quantum topology. He is a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

and a fellow of the

Bangladesh Academy of Sciences Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS) is an academic forum for Bangladeshi scientists and technologists. Established in 1973, it aims to fulfill the role of promoting research and development of sciences in Bangladesh. History After the partiti ...

Personal life and career

Born in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

, Bangladesh in 1971, Hasan attended

Dhanmondi Government Boys' High School Dhanmondi Government Boys' High School (DGBHS) is a public boys' school located in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is a state school, state run educational institution located at the intersection of Mirpur Road and Manik Miah Avenue. Originally ...

, and later graduated from

Dhaka College Dhaka College (), informally known as DC, is a public educational institution of Bangladesh located in Dhanmondi, Dhaka. It is one of the oldest educational institutions in the subcontinent. It offers Honours degree, honours and Master's degree ...

in 1988. He was admitted to the physics department of

Dhaka University The University of Dhaka (), also known as Dhaka University (DU), is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Established in 1921, it is the oldest active university in the country. The University of Dhaka was founded in 1921 ...

, but chose to attend the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

on a scholarship. Hasan completed his B.S. degree in physics, and then attended

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, from which he obtained an M.S. and a Ph.D. Hasan's Ph.D. thesis, entitled ''Charge Dynamics in Low Dimensional Prototype Correlated Systems'', was published by the

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park, Ca ...

in November 2001 and by the

Office of Scientific and Technical Information The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The '' Energy Policy Act'' PL 109–58, Section 982, called out the responsibility of OSTI: "The Secre ...

in March 2002. Advised by Zhi-Xun Shen, the report served as Hasan's thesis in applied physics. After his graduate work at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

, Hasan became a Robert H. Dicke Fellow in fundamental physics at

and held appointments at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the company operates several lab ...

and

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

, before joining the faculty at

. Hasan is the Principal Investigator of Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy at Princeton University and a Visiting Faculty Scientist at

in California Since 2014 he has been an EPiQS-Moore Investigator, awarded by the Betty and

Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (January 3, 1929 – March 24, 2023) was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors i ...

foundation in Palo Alto (California) for his research on emergent quantum phenomena in topological matter. He has been a Vanguard Fellow of the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., but also has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, its original home. Its stated miss ...

(Washington DC) since 2014. Hasan is an elected fellow of the

. In 2024, Hasan was appointed a visiting professor to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

Research

Hasan's research is focused on fundamental physics - either searching for, or in-depth exploration of novel phases of electronic quantum matter. He co-proposed and co-led the scattering-spectroscopy MERLIN beam-line and end-station facility at the

. and developed a laboratory for

ultrafast In optics, an ultrashort pulse, also known as an ultrafast event, is an electromagnetic pulse whose time duration is of the order of a picosecond (10−12 second) or less. Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum, and can be created by m ...

and coherent quantum phenomena at Princeton University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasan, M. Zahid Living people Princeton University faculty Stanford University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)