In 2001 Jorge Pullin joined the LSU faculty as one of the Hearne Chairs and in 2004 Jonathan Dowling was also hired as a Hearne Chair. After several conversations it was clear that both shared many common goals and visions that made the possibility of carrying out the mandate of creating an institute a reality. In particular the two areas of gravitational physics and quantum technologies share many common areas of research. Examples are the quantization of gravity, quantum optics effects in gravitational wave interferometers, decoherence due to quantum gravity, non-standard optics due to quantum gravity, computational issues associated with quantum computing and gravitational problems.

The Institute creation was formally approved by the LSU System Board of Supervisors on October 28th 2005 and has more than 10 associate faculty in the departments of Physics and Astronomy, Math, Electrical Engieerign and Computer science. You can see a list of the faculty and further details in the gravity and quantum technologies pages.