The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution at its Feb. 3 meeting to commend UC Santa Barbara physics professor emeritus John Martinis and physics professor Michel Devoret for their 2025 Nobel Prize in physics.
The SBC Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution to commend UCSB professors John Martinis and Michel Devoret for their 2025 Nobel Prize in physics. Courtesy of Santa Barbara County
Martinis, Devoret and UC Berkeley physics professor John Clarke were awarded the Nobel Prize for their research showing how quantum mechanical behavior works in electrical circuits.
The resolution was sponsored by Second District Supervisor Laura Capps and recognizes the technological significance of Martinis and Devoret’s research, which has practical applications in the development of quantum computers.
Capps described the moment as “making some history” for the Board of Supervisors. She mentioned that when the Board decided to honor the pair, they weren’t sure if they would actually show up in person due to “global demand” for their time.
The resolution also recognized the positive impact that the prestige of a Nobel Prize brings to UCSB and Santa Barbara County as a whole, facilitating international recognition of the entire community’s commitment to research and innovation.
Capps emphasized that she and other community members are “so immensely proud” of Martinis and Devoret’s achievements.
“It was so clear the many ways in which your award has this ripple effect on the campus environment and the county environment,” Capps said. “The ways in which it attracts more professors, more research, more jobs — it’s a ripple effect.”
As the resolution was read aloud, Martinis and Devoret received a standing ovation from the boardroom’s audience.
Martinis thanked the University of California system as a whole for hiring him in 2004 and quipped that he “assumed [this] was a good decision” for the UC. He also expressed his gratitude to the UC for their understanding and support when his research was transferred to Google. In 2014, Google hired Martinis and other researchers to build a quantum computer utilizing superconducting qubits.
“I’m actually very proud that when we did that move, in the end, Google has been able to have a big program in Santa Barbara with high-tech jobs — really well-paid jobs — which I think is good for the county and for UC Santa Barbara,” Martinis said.
Martinis left Google in April 2020 and founded his own quantum computing startup company, QoLab, in 2022. He stated that he hopes to open a satellite office in Santa Barbara and bring more jobs to the community.
Devoret expressed his gratitude to the county for the resolution and said that he has felt welcomed as a newer member of the community, having moved from the East Coast three years ago, where he was a physics professor at Yale University for around two decades.
“I have found the welcoming atmosphere here really wonderful. I would like to thank, of course, the University of California for giving me the opportunity to start a new lab, which will be the continuation of the work that John and I have done,” Devoret said. “It will partner with Google, where I am a chief scientist for the building of a quantum computer.”
Capps recalled a moment she witnessed at a celebration in an “overpacked room” at UCSB when it was first announced that Martinis and Devoret received the Nobel Prize. She said that she was struck by the number of students who were present and described seeing students speak about their experiences with the professors.
“I can only imagine what that means to them to have had office hours with you — Nobel laureates — and what that means to their work, going forward, and that what that means to their children, that they can then talk about the fact that [their parents] studied with Nobel laureates, so thank you for your research,” Capps said.
A version of this article appeared on p. 6 of the Feb. 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.
