People

Andrea Damascelli is a Professor at UBC’s Department of Physics & Astronomy and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in the Electronic Structure of Quantum Materials. For 11 years, since 2015 till 2025, he has served as the Scientific Director of the University of British Columbia’s Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (QMI), and the co-Director of the Max Planck-UBC-UTokyo Centre for Quantum Materials.

As QMI’s Scientific Director, Andrea led UBC’s effort resulting in the $66.5 million award from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund for Quantum Materials and Future Technologies. With more than 200 papers published, more than 22,000 citations, and an h-index of 64 (Google Scholar), Andrea’s work on quantum materials has gained global recognition and helped position Canada as a leader in the field of photoelectron spectroscopy.

Andrea develops and utilizes angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and its time- and spin-resolved variants (Time+Spin+ARPES), as well as resonant x-ray scattering (RXS), to push the limits of these techniques and gain a deeper understanding of quantum materials and new phases of matter, with emphasis on superconducting cuprates, nickelates, ruthenates, iridates, and other correlated oxides.

Leveraging facilities established at QMI in the UBC-Moore Centre for Ultrafast Quantum Matter and the Quantum Materials Spectroscopy Centre (QMSC) at the Canadian Light Source (CLS), Andrea and his group pursue the probing and controlling of the electronic structure of quantum materials through in situ adatom deposition, strain, and ultrafast pulsed laser excitation.

His work has been recognized with the prestigious Sloan, Killam, and NSERC’s Steacie Memorial Fellowships, the Bessel Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation, the Canadian Association of Physicists’ DCMMP Brockhouse Medal, the Ingegno Italiano Award, and the Jacob Biely Research Prize. Andrea is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Physics Society, the European Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Graduate Center for Quantum Materials, a Kavli Fellow of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a Senior Fellow of the CIFAR Quantum Materials Program.