Andreas J. Heinrich is a physicist working with scanning tunneling microscope, quantum technology, nanoscience, spin excitation spectroscopy, and precise atom manipulation. He worked for IBM Research in Almaden for 18 years, during which time he developed nanosecond scanning tunneling microscopy which provided an improvement in time resolution of 100,000 times, and combined x-ray absorption spectroscopy with spin excitation spectroscopy. He was also principal investigator of the stop-motion animated short film A Boy and His Atom filmed by moving thousands of individual atoms. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research and is a fellow of the American Physical Society.