Bob Coecke

Bob Coecke
Born (1968-07-23) 23 July 1968 (age 58)
Willebroek, Belgium
CitizenshipBelgium
EducationVrije Universiteit Brussel
Known forCategorical quantum mechanics, ZX-calculus, DisCoCat, quantum natural language processing, dagger compact categories
Scientific career
Fields
Industrial music
Workplaces
Thesis Hidden Measurement Systems  (1996)
  • Diederik Emiel Aerts
  • Jean Reignier
Websitewww.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/bob.coecke/

Bob Coecke (born 23 July 1968) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and logician. He was Professor of Quantum foundations, Logics, and Structures at Oxford University until 2020. He was Chief Scientist at quantum computing company Quantinuum, until 2025 and founded a startup called Relational Intelligence in 2026. He is also Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.

He pioneered categorical quantum mechanics (entry 18M40 in Mathematics Subject Classification 2020), Quantum Picturalism, ZX-calculus, DisCoCat model for natural language, quantum natural language processing (QNLP) and quantum education through the book Quantum in Pictures. He is a founder of the Quantum Physics and Logic community and the Applied Category Theory communities and conference series, and of the journal Compositionality.

Coecke is also a composer and musician, who has been called a pioneer of industrial music, and is also one of the pioneers of employing quantum computers in music.

Education and career

Coecke obtained his doctorate in sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1996, and performed postdoctoral work in the Theoretical Physics Group of Imperial College, London in the Category Theory Group of the Mathematics and Statistics Department at McGill University in Montreal, in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics of Cambridge University, and in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.[citation needed]

He was an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, where he became Lecturer in Quantum Computer Science in 2007, and jointly with Samson Abramsky built and headed the Quantum Group. In July 2011, he was nominated professor of Quantum Foundations, Logics and Structures at Oxford University, with retroactive effect as of October 2010. He was a Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford since 2007, where he now is an Emeritus Fellow.

In January 2019, Coecke became Senior Scientific Advisor of Cambridge Quantum Computing, and in January 2021 he resigned from his Professorship at Oxford, to become Chief Scientist of Cambridge Quantum Computing. After the merger of Cambridge Quantum Computing with Honeywell Quantum Systems, he stayed on as Chief Scientist of the joint entity Quantinuum until 2025.

In January 2023 he also became Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Work

Coecke's research focuses on the foundations of physics, more particularly category theory, logic, and diagrammatic reasoning, with application to quantum informatics, quantum gravity, and NLP.[better source needed] He has pioneered categorical quantum mechanics together with Samson Abramsky, and spearheaded the development of a diagrammatic quantum formalism based on Penrose graphical notation, on which he wrote a textbook entitled Picturing Quantum Processes with Aleks Kissinger. With Ross Duncan he pioneered ZX-calculus. He pioneered the DisCoCat model for natural language, with Stephen Clark and Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh. He also pioneered quantum natural language processing (QNLP), with Will Zeng, and colleagues at Cambridge Quantum Computing.

Music

Coecke is also a musician, performing and recording since the eighties. He retrospectively has been named a pioneer of industrial music. His band, Black Tish, "used cutting edge sampling techniques for the time, a host of synth and sound loops and metal-style guitars to create a heavy rock/electronica fusion unlike anything heard before", and "bridge the gap between the pure experimental nature of bands like Throbbing Gristle and Einstürzende Neubauten and the (comparatively) more radio accessible Ministry or Nine Inch Nails".

Coecke is also one of the pioneers of employing quantum computers in music.

Selected publications

Textbooks
Books (as editor)
Articles
Software articles

References

  1. ↑ Bishop, Christopher (7 December 2022). "Quantum Tech Pod Episode 40: Quantinuum Chief Scientist Bob Coecke". Inside Quantum Technology News. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  2. ↑ Bob Coecke publications indexed by Google Scholar
  3. 1 2 Bob Coecke at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ↑ "Prof. Bob Coecke". London Tech Week 2026. Retrieved 15 May 2026.
  5. ↑ Coecke, Bob; Kissinger, Aleks (16 March 2017). Picturing quantum processes : a first course in quantum theory and diagrammatic reasoning. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107104228. OCLC 1026174191.
  6. ↑ Coecke, Bob; Sadrzadeh, Mehrnoosh; Clark, Stephen (2011), Mathematical Foundations for a Compositional Distributional Model of Meaning, arXiv:1003.4394
  7. ↑ Cody Conard: Black Tish - Throbbing Flip Out (Blindsight Records), The Big Takeover Show, 15 October 2023 (review)
  8. ↑ Layla Marino: New Artist Spotlight? Sort of: Meet Black Tish, the Pioneering Industrial Band that Released their Work 35 Years Late, YourEDM, 4 October 2023 ()
  9. ↑ Layla Marino: Roll Over Quanthoven: Can Quantum Computers Be Programmed To Become Quantum Composers?, Matt Swayne, 19 November 2021 ()
  10. 1 2 Bob Coecke, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford (downloaded 1 April 2012)
  11. ↑ Faculty Computing Laboratory at the University of Oxford (downloaded 1 April 2012)
  12. ↑ College Officers, Governing Body Fellows & Visiting Scholars, Wolfson College, University of Oxford (downloaded 1 April 2012)
  13. ↑ , Meet Professor Bob Coecke, Quantinuum
  14. ↑ Bob Coecke, Bob Coecke, Perimeter institute
  15. ↑ Bob Coecke, LinkedIn (downloaded 1 April 2012)
  16. ↑ Cambridge Quantum Makes Quantum Natural Language Processing A Reality, Forbes, 13 October 2021 ()
  17. ↑ Cody Conard: Black Tish - Throbbing Flip Out (Blindsight Records), The Big Takeover Show, 15 October 2023 (review)
  18. ↑ Layla Marino: New Artist Spotlight? Sort of: Meet Black Tish, the Pioneering Industrial Band that Released their Work 35 Years Late, YourEDM, 4 October 2023 (review)
  19. ↑ Layla Marino: New Artist Spotlight? Sort of: Meet Black Tish, the Pioneering Industrial Band that Released their Work 35 Years Late, YourEDM, 4 October 2023 (review)
  20. ↑ Cody Conard: Black Tish - Throbbing Flip Out (Blindsight Records), The Big Takeover Show, 15 October 2023 (review)
  21. ↑ Layla Marino: Roll Over Quanthoven: Can Quantum Computers Be Programmed To Become Quantum Composers?, Matt Swayne, 19 November 2021 (article)