Ronald’s research centers on exploring and controlling quantum-entangled states with the long-term goal of exploiting these in future quantum technologies such as quantum computing and quantum internet. His work combines quantum optics, solid-state physics, nuclear magnetic resonance, quantum information theory and nanofabrication. In 2014 his group made headlines by teleporting quantum data between electrons on distant solid-state chips. In 2015 he ended a decades-long scientific quest by performing the first loophole-free Bell test. In 2018 his group achieved the important milestone of generating quantum entanglement faster than it got lost. In 2021 his team realized the world’s first multi-node entanglement-based quantum network in the lab. In the coming years he aims to build on these results to demonstrate the fundamentals of a future quantum internet on the road towards large-scale deployment.

Ronald has received several awards for his work, among which the Nicholas Kurti European Science Prize (2012), the Huibregtsen Award for Excellence in Science and Society (2016), the John Stewart Bell Prize (2017) and the Physica Prize (2022). In 2019 he received the Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. He was elected as member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) and of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW), and as Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2020 he was appointed as the university’s 6th Distinguished Professor.