Sandu Popescu is a theoretical physicist, whose research centres on conceptual and fundamental problems in quantum mechanics. He is one of the pioneers of quantum information and he is best known for his work on entanglement and the associated phenomenon of non-locality. His results were instrumental in putting entanglement and non-locality at the very core of our present-day understanding of quantum theory. He also designed a scheme that led to the experimental demonstration of quantum teleportation.

More recently Sandu contributed to the foundations of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics where the application of new concepts and tools originating from quantum information led to a completely new approach to the subject. Sandu was awarded several prizes including the 2016 Dirac Medal of the Institute of Physics, and the 2011 John Stewart Bell Prize.