Francesco Petruccione

Francesco Petruccione AAS,ASSAf, NITheCS is a physicist and academic leader currently living in South Africa and serving as a professor of Physics at Stellenbosch University and the director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS). With a wealth of experience in his field, he previously held the position of professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Big Data and Informatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Petruccione is also a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa.

Early life and education
Francesco Petruccione was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1961. He pursued his undergraduate studies in physics at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he earned his first degree in the field. Petruccione continued his academic journey at the same institution, earning his doctorate in 1988 and his Habilitation degree (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) in 1994.

Career
In 2004, he became a professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and was awarded an Innovation Fund grant the following year to establish a Centre for Quantum Technology. Petruccione went on to hold the position of South African Research Chair for Quantum Information Processing and Communication Technology in 2007.

In addition to his role as interim director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Science (NITheCS), Petruccione also held an adjunct professor position at the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology. In 2018, he was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor of Big Data and Informatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) before moving to Stellenbosch University in 2022 as a professor of Physics and Quantum Computing as part of the Physics Department and the School of Data Science and Computational Thinking. In 2023 Petruccione was honored with the title of Cavaliere della Stella d'Italia, Order of the Star of Italy, at a function at the Italian Embassy in Cape Town, South Africa. As of May 2024 he has officially been appointed as director of NITheCS.

Petruccione is highly regarded in his field, with a reputation for his groundbreaking work in physics and quantum computing.

Selected publications

 * Francesco Petruccione and Heinz-Peter Breuer: The Theory of Open Quantum Systems.
 * Maria Schuld and Francesco Petruccione: Machine Learning with Quantum Computers.
 * Maria Schuld and Francesco Petruccione: Supervised Learning with Quantum Computers
 * Heinz-Peter Breuer & Francesco Petruccione: How to build master equations for complex systems
 * Shivani Mahashakti Pillay, Ilya Sinayskiy, Edgar Jembere & Francesco Petruccione:  Implementing Quantum-Kernel-Based Classifiers in the NISQ Era
 * Carsten Blank & Francesco Petruccione Quantum Applications - Fachbeitrag: Vielversprechend: Monte-Carlo-ähnliche Methoden auf dem Quantencomputer
 * Lavanya Singh, Ugochukwu J. Anyaneji, Wilfred Ndifon, Neil Turok, Stacey A. Mattison, Richard Lessells, Ilya Sinayskiy, Emmanuel J. San, Houriiyah Tegally, Shaun Barnett, Trevor Lorimer, Francesco Petruccione & Tulio de Oliveira:  Implementation of an efficient SARS-CoV-2 specimen pooling strategy for high throughput diagnostic testing.
 * Camille L. Latune, Ilya Sinayskiy & Francesco Petruccione: Roles of quantum coherences in thermal machines.
 * M. Schuld, M. Fingerhuth, Francesco Petruccione: Implementing a distance-based classifier with a quantum interference circuit.