Michelle Yvonne Simmons (born 14 July 1967) is an Australian quantum physicist, recognised for her foundational contributions[2] to the field of atomic electronics.

[6] As a postgraduate at St Aidan's College, Durham she was awarded a PhD in 1992 for her thesis "The characterisation of CdTe-based epitaxial solar cell structures fabricated by MOVPE", with research supervised by Andrew W.

[8] She has held several other positions over the course of her career, including:[4] As of 2023[update] Simmons is Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales.

Her research team at ARC created the first precision single atom transistor and the narrowest conducting wires in silicon, among other achievements.

[14][15] She gave the Australia Day address for New South Wales in 2017,[16][17] in which she spoke about the importance of setting high expectations for students.

[42] She is married to Thomas Barlow, formerly, a Financial Times columnist[43] and a Fellow of MIT and Balliol College, Oxford,[44] now a novelist and business analyst.

[10] In her 2017 Australia Day address, Simmons criticised the lowering of standards in physics education in the HSC (Higher School Certificate) curriculum, in which an effort has been made to make physics more appealing to girls by substituting mathematical problem-solving with qualitative responses, remarking that the curriculum had a "feminised nature".