Following his education at Prince Alfred College Ben Varcoe undertook a BSc (Hons) at Flinders University and from 1993-97 a PhD at Griffith University, Queensland.
Ben worked at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (Germany), which is the world’s leading research institute in its field, where he studied quantum mechanics at its most fundamental level using a one-atom-maser (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). His contribution to this field has earned him two Max Planck honorariums.
Ben Varcoe is a professor in the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds. He is a fellow of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and member of its College of experts. Ben is one of the leading experimentalists of precision measurements in the UK and has applied the principles of quantum metrology to a number of applications, including magnetocardiography.