Dean of the Faculty Leah Van Wey announced that Vesna Mitrović, L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of Physics and Engineering, will assume the position of Chair of the Department of Physics on July 1, 2023. Dean Van Wey offered sincere thanks to Professor Gang Xiao, who “re-entered the chair position in January, working tirelessly to support and advocate for the department,” and acknowledged the “exceptional leadership provided by Professor Meenakshi Narain during her career at Brown and most recently as chair.”

Professor Mitrović joined the Brown Physics Department in 2003. A graduate of Illinois Institute of Technology, she received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University working under supervision of Prof. W. P. Halperin in 2001. She has done postdoctoral work at Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Grenoble, France). She is an A. P. Sloan Fellow and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. 

Professor Mitrovic's research is in the area of experimental condensed matter physics. Her group is spearheading the efforts to develop novel probe of elusive quantum properties of materials inspired by magnetic resonance protocols that emerged in the context of quantum information science. The same magnetic resonance methodology developed to probe emergent quantum orders is being adopted to benchmark and fully control the response of quantum devices made from such materials.

She serves as A Member at Large to the executive committee of The American Physical Society (APS) Division of Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP) and  The Vice Chair of the APS executive committee GIMS (Group on Instrument and Measurement Science).