Theoretical Physics

Quantum Sciences

Epistemology

Computational Biology

Condensed Matter Physics

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.

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.

Quantum Biology Laboratory at Howard University Receives Grant from Guy Foundation

The QBL becomes first US lab to receive UK foundation grant in quantum biology.

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.

Howard University physicist revisits the computational limits of life and Schrödinger’s essential question in the era of quantum computing

The discovery of life processing with UV-excited qubits supports a conjecture relative to the computing capacity of the universe.

Computational capacity of life in relation to the universe

Computational capacity of life in relation to the universe

As physical systems, all life in the universe processes information according t physical laws. Estimates for the computational capacity of living systems generally assume that the fundamental information-processing unit is the Hodgkin-Huxley neuron, thereby excluding aneural organisms. Assuming the laws of quantum mechanics, the relativistic speed limit set by light, a universe at critical mass-energy density, and a recent experimental demonstration of single-photon superradiance in cytoskeletal protein fibers at thermal equilibrium, it is conjectured that the number of elementary logical operations that can have been performed by all eukaryotic life in the history of Earth, which is show to be approximately equal to the ratio of the age of the universe to the Planck time, is about the square root of the number by the entire observable universe from the beginning. The existence of ultraviolet-excited states in these protein fibers, operating within two orders of magnitude of the Margolus-Levitin speed limit, motivates state-of-the-art performance comparisons with contemporary quantum computers.