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Faculty
Faculty

Philip Kurian, PhD (He/Him)

Principal Investigator and Founding Director, Quantum Biology Laboratory

https://www.quantumbiolab.com

Department/Office

  • Graduate School

School/College

  • Graduate School

Biography

Dr. Philip Kurian is a theoretical physicist, (re)search(ing) scientist, and essayist, serving as principal investigator and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (https://quantumbiolab.com) at Howard University. Beginning his career as a math teacher in North Philadelphia, he completed his doctorate in physics at Howard after a stint at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Kurian is now the recipient of fellowships, grants, and awards from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission, Whole Genome Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. His laboratory studies how collective and cooperative quantum behaviors can explain biological phenomena at the mesoscopic, organismal, and clinical scales, including in neurodegeneration, cancer, and human consciousness. The group's work has been featured in Science, The Quantum Insider, SPIE Photonics Focus, Optica, Laser Focus World, BioPhotonics, Howard Magazine, TEDx, and by prominent science channels including Science News with Sabine and PBS Space Time.

In 2023 Dr. Kurian was selected as a Fellow of the UCSB Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 2022 he became a Simons Scholar and Senior Fellow at the UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics. In 2021 Dr. Kurian was appointed to the chairing committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop on quantum-enabled sensing and imaging for biology. His Quantum Biology Laboratory was the first group in the U.S. to receive a scientific grant from the U.K.-based Guy Foundation, and the lab’s expertise is solicited regularly by federal agencies, private foundations, and the media. Dr. Kurian also serves as a scientific advisor to the “Science for Seminaries” program of the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, which seeks to integrate frontier science questions into conversations among future theologians and clergy. His essays on science, human knowledge systems, and empire have appeared in various media outlets, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Granta, and Plough.

Research

Research

Specialty

Quantum biology; Theoretical physics; Many-body entanglement; Quantum field theory; Protein photophysics

Funding

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Guy Foundation

National Institutes of Health

National Science Foundation

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Chaikin-Wile Foundation

U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission

Whole Genome Science Foundation

Group Information

James Murray, Intern Coordinator and K-12 Liaison

Suyash Bajpai, Postdoctoral Scholar

Nathan Babcock, Postdoctoral Scholar Alumnus

Matteo Gori, Postdoctoral Scholar Alumnus

Khatereh Azizi, Postdoctoral Scholar Alumnus

Gustavo Montes-Cabrera, Research Associate

Satya Vijayan, Research Associate

Joi Malone, Graduate Student Mentor

Muhammad Chawla, Undergraduate Intern

Hamza Patwa, Undergraduate Intern

Srila Palanikumar, Undergraduate Intern

Marco Pettini, Senior Scientist

Jérémie Torres, Spectroscopy Scientist

Muneer Abbas, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Lab Manager

Georgia Dunston, Professor Emerita and Senior Advisor

Accomplishments

Accomplishments

U.S. - Italy Fulbright Scholar

The overall goal of this Fulbright grant is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of Italy through the exchange of ideas and culture. The Fulbright Scholar Program's primary purpose is as a public diplomacy initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and is designed to expand and strengthen the relationships between the people of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world. To support this mission, grantees are asked to give public talks and engage with the host community, in addition to their primary research objectives.

Fulbright Intercountry Program Grants Recipient (multiple)

Awards received during tenure as U.S.-Italy Fulbright Scholar to provide for travel expenses from Trieste, Italy, to Salerno (IT), Brescia (IT), Prague (CZ), Luxembourg (LX), Napoli (IT), and Marseille (FR) for lecturing and scientific collaboration.

Director's Discretionary Awards, Oak Ridge and Argonne Leadership Computing Facilities

Serve as principal investigator on two high-performance computing awards for over one million core-hours to simulate many-body quantum electronic fluctuations and calculate terahertz spectra of complex biomacromolecular systems in aqueous environments.

WGSF NHGC Postdoctoral Scholar in Whole Genome Science

The ultimate goal of this grant is to train new-generation thought leaders in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics of whole genome science, while developing capacity for quantum biology research at Howard University.

AAAS Public Science Engagement Contest Winner

Awarded for joint presentation at the Ethiopian Educators Without Borders conference at the Ethiopian Embassy (Washington, DC), with other Howard University scholars, on 18 May 2019 - “Connecting DC and Ethiopian Communities in Science, Spirituality, and Scholarship.”

Executive Team, AAAS-Howard University Engaging Scientists Campus Event

In collaboration with other Howard University scholars, developed one of six proposals in the nation to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion to enhance scientists’ ability to engage with diverse religious publics, including keynote speakers, AAAS-led sessions, a public science engagement contest, and a culminating TEDx: LeDroit Park event on the theme "Translation to Transformation." 

Simons Scholar and Senior Fellow, UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics

Served as visiting senior scientist in 2022 developing advanced theory and methods to understand complex, open, and excited quantum systems, while mentoring junior scholars during the IPAM long program "Advancing Quantum Mechanics with Mathematics and Statistics."

Scientific Advisor, Guy Foundation

Scientific advisor to the UK-based Guy Foundation Family Trust (theguyfoundation.org) on quantum biology research, quantum physics principles, public science outreach, and seminar series development.

Scientific Advisor, AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has launched a major five-year initiative entitled, “Science for Seminaries: Integrating Science into Core Theological Education Phase II” within the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program. The DoSER program seeks to facilitate conversations between scientific and religious communities through a variety of events and projects. The Science for Seminaries Phase II project, run in collaboration with the Association of Theological Schools, follows a successful three-year pilot project that concluded in 2016. See the current seminaries at www.ScienceForSeminaries.org.The grantee seminaries are required to integrate science into two core courses and host one science-focused campus-wide event during an 18-month period. The goals of the project are to encourage interest in a diverse array of science topics within seminaries, produce a growing number of pastors equipped to help their congregants find answers to science-related questions, and to create an atmosphere in faith communities in which science is considered relevant and important to religious and societal worldviews.

Fellow, UCSB Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics

Selected as a visiting fellow in 2023 to conduct research and attend two KITP programs, one on deep learning in physics and neuroscience and another on out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum phenomena.

Related Articles

The Quantum Biology Laboratory Is Moving Forward by Reaching Back

The QBL supports K-12 quantum science education by dedicating the Quantum STEAM Lab in Philadelphia.

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Awards Quantum Biology Laboratory at Howard University $1M for Matter-to-Life Research

This Sloan Foundation award will support the QBL in studying how self-organizing processes give rise to goal-oriented behaviors in the reassembly, agential decision-making, and computational capacity of the unicellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum. 

Quantum fiber optics in the brain enhance processing, may protect against degenerative diseases

Led by the QBL, a group of theoretical and experimental researchers has discovered a distinctly quantum effect in biology that survives warm, chaotic conditions and may also present a way for the brain to protect itself from degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. 

Quantum optical phenomenon in the brain challenges conventional view of amyloid in Alzheimer’s

The QBL has discovered a unique quantum effect in biology that could be the key to understanding a common marker of Alzheimer’s, raising questions about current assumptions of the disease and informing the search for a cure.