Spyridon “Spiros” Michalakis

Dr. Spyridon "Spiros" Michalakis is a quantum physicist and staff researcher at the California Institute of Technology. He was a scientific consultant on Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel and Avengers 4. Serving as a consultant to Hollywood filmmakers on the physics of Ant Man is an interesting complement to the lofty research that Spyridon (who goes by Spiros) does at IQIM in areas of quantum many-body physics and the emergence of spacetime from quantum entanglement. Spiros grew up in Greece, solving math puzzles and playing volleyball with his brothers. After high school, he moved to the U.S. to study Math and Computer Science at MIT, before coming to sunny California for his PhD in Applied Mathematics at UC Davis. He is now at Caltech, where he splits his time between research on theoretical quantum physics and outreach for the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. In addition to his current work as a physics researcher at Caltech, Spiros also serves as the staff advisor for Caltech’s Chapter of InnoWorks, and contributor to IQIM’s science blog, Quantum Frontiers. Always fun-loving, he is also collaborating with Project Runway’s Alicia Hardesty and Caltech’s Crystal Dilworth on a fashion line that will “redefine nerdy.