Thierry Botter

Head of BlueSky Airbus

Dr. Thierry Botter is Head of Airbus Blue Sky, Airbus’ gateway to basic research on technologies and capabilities of the future in aerospace. His organization is currently running research projects in quantum and secure communication, quantum computing, quantum sensing, and computational neuroscience. He previously led Airbus’ Optronics Research Team. The team, based in both Germany and the United Kingdom with 10 researchers and several students, focused on short- and long-range optical communication, fibre-based sensors, optical air data systems, active and passive optical imaging across multiple frequency bands, and intelligent displays.

Prior to joining Airbus, Dr. Botter was a postdoctoral scholar in the Quantum Sciences and Technology group of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He worked on the development of transportable atom interferometers for gravity and gravity gradient sensing in space.

Dr. Botter holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He conducted his doctoral research on cavity optomechanics in the quantum regime with ultracold atoms, under the guidance of Prof. Dan Stamper-Kurn.