# Lene V. Hau Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics ![Prof. Lene V. Hau headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum6476/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2026-02/Hau-headshot.jpg?itok=fL_FE6aU) location\_on Lyman Lab 229 email Lene Vestergaard Hau is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics and Academic Dean for Education in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 1999, Hau was a Senior Scientist at the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Hau led a team that succeeded in slowing a pulse of light to 15 miles per hour and also brought light to a stop. They took matters further as they stopped and extinguished a light pulse in one part of space, and subsequently revived it in a different location. In the process, the light pulse is converted to a perfect matter copy that can be stored, sculpted, and then turned back to light. These results represent the ultimate quantum control of light and matter. Hau has contributed to a wide variety of research fields. Her Ph.D. work was in theoretical condensed matter physics and she later shifted her attention to experimental and theoretical optical and atomic physics. Her research has included studies of ultra-cold atoms and superfluid Bose-Einstein condensates, as well as channeling of high-energy electrons and positrons in single crystals with experiments at CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory. She is a 2001 MacArthur Fellow, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society. Hau is the recipient of numerous awards, including Harvard University’s Ledlie Prize, the Ole Roemer Medal awarded by the University of Copenhagen, and the Richtmyer Memorial Lecture Award awarded by the American Association of Physics Teachers. In 2010, she was appointed a National Security Science and Technology Faculty Fellow by the US Secretary of Defense. She was named "World Dane" in 2010, a Distinguished Alumna of Aarhus University in 2011, and a Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate) Citation Laureate in Physics” in 2012 by Thomson Reuters. In 2018, she was honored with the Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal, sponsored by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences through its Nobel Committee for Physics, and in 2019 with the Lars Onsager Lecture and Medal by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the Dirac Medal and Lecture by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and the Australian Institute of Physics. In 2024, she received an Honorary Doctorate, *honoris causa*, from the University of Southern Denmark, and in 2025 an Honorary Doctorate, *honoris causa*, from the University of Pennsylvania. Lene Hau’s research is described on RadioLab’s [Master of the Universe](http://www.radiolab.org/story/267126-master-universe/) > **Faculty Coordinator:** [Anna Frej](/people/anna-frej "Anna Frej ") --- Attachments- [ image Hau-headshot.jpg ](/sites/g/files/omnuum6476/files/2026-02/Hau-headshot.jpg) --- - ## Role [Faculty](/faculty)