Peter McMahon is an American physicist and Associate Professor at Cornell University. He works in Applied and Engineering Physics, studying how physical systems can perform computation.
His research spans quantum computing, photonics, and neuromorphic systems.
Who is Peter McMahon?
Peter McMahon is an Associate Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University. He has held this position since joining the faculty in 2019, after completing his PhD and postdoctoral training at Stanford University.
He leads the McMahon Lab, which researches the physics of computation. The lab explores how physical systems, including quantum, optical, and neuromorphic systems, can perform computation differently than conventional processors.
McMahon has built a reputation in the optics and quantum computing communities. In 2025, Optica awarded him the Adolph Lomb Medal for his work on optical-physics-based computing machines.
Early Life of Peter McMahon
Peter McMahon completed his early academic training in South Africa before moving into graduate study in the United States. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town between 2003 and 2008.
During that period, he completed a Bachelor of Science in Engineering along with two Master of Science degrees, in electrical and computer engineering and in computer science.
Before starting graduate school at Stanford, McMahon spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley. There, he worked on instrumentation for radio astronomy and bioinformatics research.
That experience led him toward Stanford University, where he began his graduate studies in 2008. His path from Cape Town to Stanford to Cornell shaped the research direction he still follows today.
Peter McMahon Age
An exact birth date for Peter McMahon is not publicly confirmed. Based on his academic timeline, including his undergraduate studies starting in 2003, he appears to be in his early-to-mid career stage as a physicist.
He completed his PhD in 2014 and joined the Cornell faculty in 2019. His career has advanced steadily since then, culminating in his 2025 Adolph Lomb Medal.
Peter McMahon Ethnicity and Nationality
Peter McMahon’s specific ethnicity and citizenship status are not publicly confirmed. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Cape Town in South Africa before relocating to the United States for graduate study.
He has worked in the United States since 2008, first at Stanford and now at Cornell. His academic path reflects an international background that spans two continents.
Peter McMahon Education
McMahon earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering, along with two Master’s degrees, at the University of Cape Town between 2003 and 2008. He then moved to the United States for further study.
At Stanford University, he completed an MS in Electrical Engineering from 2008 to 2010. He continued at Stanford for his PhD in Electrical Engineering, with a minor in Physics, finishing in 2014.
His doctoral research focused on quantum information processing using optically controlled spins in semiconductors. He then completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford’s Ginzton Laboratory, from 2014 to 2019.
Peter McMahon Career
Joining Cornell
McMahon joined the faculty of Cornell University‘s School of Applied and Engineering Physics as an Assistant Professor in July 2019. He set up the McMahon Lab there soon after arriving.
The lab studies how physical systems, both classical and quantum, might perform computation more efficiently than standard digital processors. Researchers in the lab work on photonic computing, neuromorphic computing, and quantum information processing.
Their work also touches optimization and machine learning as focus areas. McMahon has since been promoted to Associate Professor, reflecting his expanding research output at Cornell.
Building the McMahon Lab
In 2021, McMahon received a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The fellowship came with funding to design and prototype photonic processors aimed at neural networks that are far more energy efficient than current digital hardware.
His lab published notable results in this period, including work on training methods for physical systems to function as neural networks, which appeared in Nature in 2022. The lab also studied the limits of optical energy consumption in optical neural networks, published in Nature Communications.
Later research from the lab examined optical neural networks as preprocessors for image-sensing systems, published in Nature Photonics in 2023. McMahon’s team also began developing 2D-programmable optical waveguides for neural network applications.
Recent Work
By 2024, McMahon had been selected as a finalist for the Moore Inventor Fellowship, chosen from over 200 professors nominated across US universities. His lab continued its parallel work on quantum experiments, using both optics and microwaves to study special-purpose quantum computers.
In 2025, Optica awarded him the Adolph Lomb Medal, presented annually to a researcher who has made a noteworthy early-career contribution to optics. McMahon credited his lab’s postdocs and students for the recognition.
His lab has also started exploring unconventional nanoelectronic neural networks, building on ideas from its earlier optical neural network research. This newer thrust continues the lab’s broader goal of engineering computers that operate near the physical limits of speed and energy efficiency.
Peter McMahon Awards and Recognition
McMahon has received numerous honors throughout his career at Stanford and Cornell.
- Google Quantum Research Award (2019)
- CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar in Quantum Information Science (2020 to 2022)
- Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2021 to 2026)
- Sloan Research Fellowship (2022)
- Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award (2022 to 2025)
- IUPAP C17 Early Career Scientist Prize for Applied Aspects on Laser Physics and Photonics (2022)
- Moore Inventor Fellowship Finalist (2024)
- Optica Adolph Lomb Medal (2025)
The Adolph Lomb Medal stands out among these honors. Optica presents it to one optics researcher globally who is within ten years of earning a PhD.
McMahon also received a Stanford Graduate Fellowship from 2008 to 2011 and a Stanford postdoctoral fellowship in nano and quantum science from 2015 to 2017. These early fellowships supported his transition from graduate student to independent researcher.
The Bottom Line
Peter McMahon built the McMahon Lab at Cornell after joining the university’s Applied and Engineering Physics faculty in 2019. His research on optical and quantum computing earned him the 2025 Optica Adolph Lomb Medal.
He trained across three countries, starting with his undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town. That path took him through Stanford before he landed at Cornell.
McMahon’s lab continues to expand its work on unconventional computing, including new nanoelectronic neural network research. He remains active in both the optics and quantum computing research communities.
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