Sebastian Schmidt studied physics at Frankfurt University and as a scholar of the German National Merit Foundation at the Free University of Berlin. He obtained a PhD from Yale University, USA, with a thesis on superconductivity in semiconductor quantum dots and achieved Habilitation at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, with research work on strongly correlated photonic systems.

At ETH Zurich Sebastian led a research group focusing on quantum technologies based on superconducting electronic circuits and photonic systems. He conducted research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and Princeton University, USA, where his proposal of a prototype quantum simulator based on light-matter interactions was experimentally verified at the Department of Electrical Engineering. Together with IBM Research, Switzerland, he advised on the development of a prototype quantum computer for chemistry and machine learning applications.

His broad research activities have led to 30 peer-reviewed publications that received more than 2000 citations. As a frequent speaker at international conferences, he has given more than 50 invited talks as well as university lectures for master and PhD students at various world-renowned institutions.