Kater Murch: Faculty Home Page

Biography

Kater received his B.A. in physics from Reed College in 2002. After that, he spent a long year slacking off, working as a beekeeper, honing his guitar skills, and studying the cello before finally starting his Ph.D. work at UC Berkeley with Prof. Dan Stamper-Kurn. Kater focused his interests on general problems in quantum measurement, and performed some of the first studies of position measurement quantum backaction. For a postdoc, he joined Irfan Siddiqi's group to study superconducting quantum circuits, where he continued to study basic questions in quantum measurement and quantum noise—focusing on quantum trajectories and open quantum systems.

In 2014, Kater joined the faculty at Washington University and built a research program focusing on quantum technologies in fabricated quantum systems, open quantum systems and dissipation engineering, and quantum sensing applications. His lab utilizes superconducting circuits to explore fundamental questions in quantum information, develops novel platforms like single electrons trapped on solid neon, and applies quantum sensors to searches for dark matter. As co-director of the Center for Quantum Leaps at WashU, Kater helped establish collaborative quantum research spanning multiple schools. He also co-founded Gateway Quantum Technologies in 2023 and Facet Lab in 2025, advancing quantum technology commercialization.

Kater has received several awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Physics, the St. Louis Academy of Science Innovation Award, the Cottrell Scholar Award, an NSF CAREER Award, the Experimental Physics Investigator Award from the Moore Foundation, and an outstanding reviewer award from APS.