Black and white profile photo of Dr. Merritt Moore
“Dr. Merritt Moore Has Achieved What Some Would Call ‘The Impossible’: A Career As A Professional Ballet Dancer And As An Academic Quantum Physicist.”
— University Of Oxford

Dr. Merritt Moore graduated with an undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard and with a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics from the University of Oxford. She is Adjunct Professor and Research Scientist at NYU Abu Dhabi exploring human-robot interaction. She is also a professional ballet dancer with Ballet de l’Opera de Nice, and formally with Boston Ballet, Zurich Ballet, English National Ballet and Norwegian National Ballet.

During the pandemic, Moore brought her passions together to dance with robots she programmed. She has now been invited to perform with robots at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Forbes Women's Summit in Abu Dhabi, WORLD.MINDS in Belgrade, Switzerland, Germany, Mexico, France, Romania, USA and more. This led to collaborations with Louis Vuitton and features in TIME, Financial Times (FT), Vogue, BBC. Her interdisciplinary work earned her a spot in Forbes 30 under 30. Merritt was one of the 12 candidates selected to undergo rigorous astronaut training on BBC Two "Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?", and she was down to the final 16 artists selected for the DearMoon project, which aimed to travel around the moon on SpaceX’s Starship.

Resume

  • NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE — Adjunct Professor of Practice and Distinguished Artist in Residence 2022-2024

    University of Oxford, UK — Ph.D. Atomic and Laser Physics/ Sept 2012 - Jan 2018

    • Doctorate research "Investigating Large Quantum States of Light at Telecommunication-band Integrated Photonics" with Professor Ian Walmsley Quantum Optics Group.

    Harvard University, USA — B.A. Physics Magna Cum Laude Honors/ Sept 2006 - Dec 2011

    • Condensed Matter Research: Conducted new experiments to explore the potential for Majorana Fermions to exist in nanowire structures for topological quantum information processing with Professor Charles Marcus.

    • High Energy Particle Physics Research with Professor Melissa Franklin and Dr. Shulamit Moed

  • Boston Ballet, USA — Corps de Ballet/ 2023 - 2024, 2010 - 2011

    Norwegian National Ballet, Norway — Corps de Ballet/ April 2018 - Oct 2019

    English National Ballet, UK— Corps de Ballet/ Nov 2014 - Jan 2015

    Zurich Ballet, Switzerland — Corps de Ballet/ June 2008 - June 2009

    Jose Mateo Ballet, USA — Guest Principal/ Nov - Dec 2019, Nov - Dec 2018, Jan - May 2012

    Harvard Ballet Company, USA — Dancer/ Sept 2010 - Dec 2010

  • World Economic Forum, Davos — Performed with Robot, Jan 2024

    Paris Olympics, France — Robot consultant/working behind the scenes 2024

    National Theatre of Belgrade, Serbia  — Performed with Robot, 2024

    Festival de las Ideas, Mexico — Performed with two Robots in front of 5,000 people, Jan 2024

    ISTE, USA — Performed with Robot in front of 3,000 people, 2024

    Boston Dynamics A.I. Institute  — +100 hours as a consultant,  Nov 2023 - 

    EY — Advisory board for EY’s Emerging Tech Lab, June 2023 -

    Infosys, Austria — Keynote speaker, Dec 2023

    Boston Ballet, USA — Turning Pointe September 2022 | MACHINE YEARNING: Industrial robots and human dancers create a provocative partnership, with AI-enhanced original music composed in real-time through movement

    Harvard A.I Opening, USA — September 2022 | MACHINE YEARNING: Industrial robots and human dancers create a provocative partnership, with AI-enhanced original music composed in real-time through movement

    FORBES Summit, UAE — Sept 2022

    America’s Got Talent, USA — May 2021, all 4 yes’s from judges. Video here.

    Cloudfest, Germany — March 2021. 4 robot dances. Video here.

    Harvard ArtLab, USA — Artist-in-Residence/ March 2019, Jan 2020 - Feb 2020

    • Collaboration with Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Oslo, Universal Robotics and HiroFutures.

    Robot Dances Online: +20 Million views online, featured in TIME, Financial Times, BBC, and Vogue

    Victoria and Albert Museum Robot/Dance installation, UK — Dancer, Choreographer/ Sept 2017

    • Co-choreographed and performed with a KUKA industrial robot with projection graphic technology for London Design Festival and Digital Design Weekend at the V&A (article)

    Barbican Theatre Virtual Reality, UK — Dancer, Science Expert/ April 2017

    • Consulted “quantum” experiences in VR film to help make quantum phenomena more intuitive. Incorporated dance with motion capture for the VR experience.

  • Louis Vuitton 2021- 2022

    KIA 2021

    Wetransfer 2021

    Lycra 2018

    Bose 2018-2022

  • MIT — invited by Professor Daniela Rus to speak to CSAIL Department.

    Harvard — invited by Professor Rob Wood and Professor Justin Werfel to speak to their classes

    The Times: International Womens’ Day — Guest Speaker/ March 2020

    Guest Teach Quantum Mechanics to Institute of Space Technology Islamabad, Pakistan (remote) — June 2020

    Forbes Women’s Summit NY — Guest Speaker/ June 2019

    US Embassy ‘Women in STEM’ Event London — Guest Speaker/ March 2019

    Princeton Physics Department Public Event — Guest Speaker/ Feb 2019

    AP Physics College Board Youtube Live (@collegeboard 170K subscribers and over 10MM views)

    TEDx University of Oslo— Guest Speaker/ May 2019 (no available YouTube link yet)

    TEDx Oxford, UK— Guest Speaker/ 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9OnFlYYF_o

    Guest speaker to over 40 schools to encourage boys and girls to pursue STEM and creative artistic practices

    Founder of SciArt Lab, an international community passionate about art and science

  • Forbes 30 under 30 - 2018

    Michael von Clemm Fellowship to pursue physics Phd at Oxford - 2012

    Featured in “Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls” Vol. 2

    Harvard Suzanne Farrell Dance Award - 2012

    BBC series: “Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?” - Astronaut selection process/ April - May 2017

    • One of the selected 12 out of thousands to undergo rigorous astronaut training based on European Space Agency (ESA) application criteria

    • Led by Astronaut and former Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, former NASA medical researcher Dr Kevin Fong, and psychologist Dr Iya Whiteley

    • Training included: helicopter pilot training, simulated emergency splashdown & underwater capsule escape, phlebotomy, Mars Rover ‘Bridget’ operation, Soyuz space capsule docking, PADI open water diver certificate, Basic Russian (spoken)

    • M. Stobinska, A. Buraczewski, M. Moore, W. R. Clements, J. J. Renema, S. W. Nam, T. Gerrits, A. Lita, W. S. Kolthammer, A. Eckstein, and I. A. Walmsley, "Quantum interference enables constant-time quantum information processing” Sci. Adv. 5, eaau9674 (2019).

    • G. Triginer, M. D. Vidrighin, A. Eckstein, M. Moore, W.S. Kolthammer, and I.A. Walmsley, “Experimental Characterisation of a Broadband Multimode Squeezed Light Source in the High Gain Regime,” European Quantum Electronics Conference (2017).

    • J. Sperling, A. Eckstein, W. R. Clements, M. Moore, J. J. Renema, W. S. Kolthammer, S. W. Nam, A. Lita, T. Gerrits, I. A. Walmsley, G. S. Agarwal, and W. Vogel, "Identification of nonclassical properties of light with multiplexing layouts," Phys. Rev. A 96, 013804 (2017).

    • J. Sperling, W. Clements, A. Eckstein, M. Moore, J. Renema, W. Kolthammer, S. Nam, A. Lita, T. Gerrits, W. Vogel, G. Agarwal, and I. Walmsley, "Detector-Independent Verification of Quantum Light," Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 163602 (2017).

    • Barz, Stefanie, Vedran Dunjko, Florian Schlederer, Merritt Moore, Elham Kashefi, and Ian A. Walmsley. "Enhanced delegated computing using coherence." arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.06730 (2015).

    • Spring, Justin B., Patrick Salter, Paolo Mennea, Benjamin Metcalf, Peter C. Humphreys, Merritt Moore, James C. Gates et al. "Quantum interference of multiple on-chip heralded sources of pure single photons." In Quantum Information and Measurement, pp. QW1B-6. Optical Society of America, 2014.

    • Peter C. Humphreys, Benjamin J. Metcalf, Justin B. Spring, Merritt Moore, Patrick S. Salter, Martin J. Booth, W. Steven Kolthammer,Ian A. Walmsley, “Strain-optic Active Control for Quantum Integrated Photonics,” Optics Express (2014)

    • P. C. Humphreys, B. J. Metcalf, J. B. Spring, M. Moore, X.-M. Jin, M. Barbieri, W. S. Kolthammer, and I. A. Walmsley, “Linear Optical Quantum Computing in a Single Spatial Mode,” Physical Review Letters 111, 150501 (2013).

    • J. B. Spring, P. S. Salter, B. J. Metcalf, P. C. Humphreys, M. Moore, N. Thomas-Peter, M. Barbieri, X.-M. Jin, N. K. Langford, W. S. Kolthammer, M. J. Booth, and I. Walmsley. On-chip low loss heralded source of pure single photons. Opt. Express, 21(11):13522, 2013.

    • Chang, Willy, Vladimir Manucharyan, Merritt Moore, Ferdinand Kuemmeth, Charles Marcus, Thomas Sand Jespersen, and Jesper Nygard. "Andreev bound states in proximitized InAs nanowires." Bulletin of the American Physical Society 57 (2012).

    • Melissa Franklin, Shulamit Moed, Merritt Moore “Measurement of the W + single charm production cross section using soft electron tags with 4.3/fb,” Public Note (CDF note 10089) (2010).