05/11/2025
We are proud to share that Professor Stefano Baroni, founding director of the Quantum ESPRESSO Foundation, has received the 2026 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics for “For seminal contributions to the development of first-principles methods to investigate the electronic and thermal properties of condensed systems, and for the development and dissemination of open-source software for electronic structure calculations that has been widely adopted.”
The Rahman prize is awarded every year by the American Physical Society since 1992 to recognize outstanding work and promoting the dissemination of information in computational physics.
Stefano Baroni is Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at SISSA (Trieste, Italy) since 1988 and has been director of the Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire (CECAM) between 1994 and 1998. His conceptual, algorithmic, and software-based contributions have shaped decisively the field across several decades. His impact spans the invention and rigorous formulation of linear-response methods within density-functional theory (DFT), its extension to the reciprocal space with density-functional perturbation theory (DFPT), and its reformulation of time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) using the language of Lanczos recursion; groundbreaking developments in microscopic theories of transport; and the conception, realization and sustainment of Quantum ESPRESSO itself.
As noted in the motivation for his 2006 election as Fellow of the APS Computational Physics Division, Stefano Baroni has uniquely bridged the gap between theoretical innovation and practical implementation - ensuring that powerful new formalisms are not only mathematically elegant but also become usable by the broader community. His pedagogical clarity and generosity in training new generations of researchers have also ensured an enduring vitality of his scientific and algorithmic legacy.
Each of these traits speaks to the very spirit of Quantum ESPRESSO.
Congratulations, Stefano!
The Quantum ESPRESSO Foundation board
