Sophia Economou

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA

Developing Practical QISE Education at the Undergraduate Level

Quantum information science and engineering (QISE) is a growing field of increasing interest and a strategic growth research area for many universities, companies, and countries. As a result, the question arises of how to deal with the anticipated QISE workforce development needs. Many universities in the US and overseas are establishing degrees at the graduate and undergraduate levels. However, the interdisciplinary character of QISE and the broad skill set required for research in the field make the design of such degrees quite nontrivial. I will review some existing degrees and discuss my views on how to address this challenge at the undergraduate level.

About the Speaker: Sophia Economou is a Professor of Physics and the Hassinger Senior Fellow of Physics at Virginia Tech. She focuses on theoretical research in quantum information science, including quantum computing, quantum communications and quantum simulation algorithms.

Emily Edwards

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Introducing Quantum Concepts to Early Learners and Non-expert Audiences

The QIS education community is developing and expanding programs aimed at both K-12 and non-expert learners. In the long-term, such initiatives have the potential to help learners develop an appreciation for QIS, and even inspire students to pursue a career in this critical area. In addition, introducing QIS concepts early in schools will enable students to build intuition around this topic, and better prepare them for future QIS coursework at the undergraduate level. Extending QIS learning opportunities to younger age groups is also critical towards growing a more inclusive, diverse quantum workforce. In this talk, I will give an overview of the activities and goals of the National Q-12 Education Partnership and the NSF-funded Q2Work program. I will also briefly summarize the status of UIUC efforts in developing quantum engineering programming for undergraduate students.

About the Speaker: Emily Edwards is currently the Managing Director of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has a PhD in physics from the University of Maryland and research experience in atomic physics and quantum information. Previously, Edwards was the Director of Communications and Outreach at the Joint Quantum Institute and has 9 years experience in science communications and public engagement. In addition to co-leading the development of the QIS Key Concepts in 2020, she is co-leading the NSF-funded Q2Work program, which is a member of the National Q-12 Education Partnership. She also has an NSF AISL project to develop an online multimedia glossary of quantum physics terms called “The Quantum Atlas.”

Alan Ho

Google Quantum AI, USA

Industry Tools for Advancing Quantum Education

Over the last few years, Google has developed resources for workforce development. Google’s Quantum AI’s philosophy is to provide students the same powerful tools that its own researchers use to push the boundaries of quantum computing research. Alan will go over the various software frameworks, hardware, experiments, documentation, and even art+games that educators can use today. He will then present a vision of how to provide hand-on education for all undergraduate students pursuing a career in quantum computing.

About the Speaker: Alan Ho leads product management and business development for Google’s Quantum AI team. He is responsible for finding early applications of quantum computers, and partnering with enterprises / startups / academia to advance quantum computing research.Prior to Google, founded a startup company that provides application performance management for mobile devices (acquired by Apigee). He has also held various technical roles at Amazon and semiconductor manufacturing.

Blake Johnson

IBM, USA

The Various Forms of Quantum Engineering in Industry

Blake Johnson is the Quantum Platform Lead at IBM. His team is responsible for the hardware and software components involved in the execution of a quantum program, including converting the program into the signals that actuate operations on quantum processors. Blake has previously worked across many elements of the quantum computing stack, including research into characterization protocols, quantum programming languages, device design, and system architecture. Prior to joining IBM, Blake served as Chief Quantum Engineer at Rigetti Computing and Senior Scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies. Blake earned his PhD in physics from Yale University under advisor Rob Schoelkopf, where he helped develop superconducting transmon qubits and apply them to novel quantum optics tasks, including invention of an absorptionless single-photon detector.

Eliot Kapit

Colorado School of Mines, USA

The Interdisciplinary Problem of Quantum Engineering

The problem of engineering a scalable, error-corrected quantum computer — particularly, one powerful enough when applied to realistic problems to justify its enormous costs — should not be seen as a single problem for which we are missing a core insight. Instead, a more realistic assessment is to think of it as hundreds of distinct sub-problems spanning diverse fields including physics, electrical engineering, materials science, computer science and more, united by the common thread of quantum weirdness itself. Educating a quantum literate workforce is an urgent national need, but given the scale and breadth of the problem, it does not fit easily in traditional departments and new educational innovations are needed. In this talk, I discuss some of the core quantum skills missing from traditional undergraduate educations, the principles we used to craft our own quantum engineering program here at Colorado School of Mines, and lessons learned so far from teaching an advanced “quantum for everyone” course during the pandemic.

About the Speaker: Eliot Kapit is an Associate Professor of Physics and Director of Quantum Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from Cornell University in 2012, before moving to postdoctoral appointments at the University of Oxford and City University of New York. He then taught for three years at Tulane university before joining the faculty at Colorado School of Mines. His research focuses on diverse areas of quantum computing, including quantum optimization, algorithm design, quantum simulation, error correction and superconducting device engineering.

Charles Bennett

IBM Research, USA

Quantum Concepts for Science and Engineering Education

Even though quantum mechanics underlies almost all of chemistry and materials science, students have usually been taught to apply quantum techniques without developing any coherent intuition for the subject. Beginning in the late 1960’s this “shut up and calculate” approach began to give way, largely due to the discovery that information itself obeys quantum laws, enabling new kinds of communication and computation and offering insights into the nature of black holes and the origin of spacetime. Teaching core quantum concepts at the undergraduate and even high school levels will lead to more quantum-capable engineers and a better educated public.

About the Speaker:Charles H. Bennett is a physicist and information theorist at IBM’s Research Division, best known for his work on the physics of information processing, including the thermodynamics of computation, the Maxwell’s demon problem, quantum cryptography, quantum computing, quantum teleportation and quantum channel capacity.  Lately he has become interested in the application of quantum information and computational complexity theory to problems in cosmology.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2020 he delivered the (virtual) Shannon Lecture.

Dripto Debroy

Duke University, USA

Using Quantum Computer Access in the Classroom

In this talk, I will discuss using the Google Quantum Engine as an educational tool to teach quantum computing concepts to graduate students at Duke University. I will focus on what insights we can use from this experience, and how it can inform future education of quantum engineers.

About the Speaker:Dripto M. Debroy is a Physics PhD Candidate at Duke University in the group of Prof. Kenneth R. Brown. His work is focused on near term error correction in trapped ion quantum computers, with a focus on physically inspired error models. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2016 with a BS in Physics.

Steven Heidel

AWS Center for Quantum Computing, USA

The Breadth of Quantum Engineering

Future quantum engineers need a multi-disciplinary education that exposes them to a variety of topics across physics, mathematics, computer science, and various branches of engineering. This implies that a quantum engineering education should focus primarily on breadth, with areas of specialization based on individual interest. In this talk, I will share my own experience working in quantum engineering with solely a computer science background, and reflect on the skills needed to work across the boundaries of different fields.

About the Speaker:Steven Heidel has been working in the field of software engineering for the past 8 years. He previously led the experimental software team at Rigetti Quantum Computing and is now at AWS. He holds a computer science degree from the University of Saskatchewan.

Robert Joynt

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Quantum Education at the Master’s Degree Level

This talk will address the question of quantum engineering workforce development from the standpoint of education at the MS level. It will draw on our experience of the first two years of offering a quantum computing MS program. The educational issues to be addressed will be curriculum, laboratory equipment and research experience. The administrative issues will include admissions, how to convince university authorities that new degrees are needed, finances, and how to increase diversity.

Robert Joynt is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Master of Science in Physics-Quantum Computing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Judith Klein-Seetharaman

Colorado School of Mines, USA

Convergence Education: Building Undergraduate and Graduate Programs Across Disciplinary Boundaries

Using the example of the quantitative biosciences and engineering program at Mines, this talk will discuss challenges and opportunities in developing educational offerings that cross departmental boundaries.

About the Speaker:Judith Klein-Seetharaman is Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado School of Mines. She has been Professor of Biomedicine and Systems Biology at the University of Warwick Medical School, UK. Prior, she was tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Structural Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA and Professor in Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway University of London, UK. She is or has been holding adjunct appointments at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, the Language Technologies Institute at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Research Centre Juelich, Germany. She obtained her PhD with late Nobel Laureate Har Gobind Khorana at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA on conformational changes and folding in the G protein coupled receptor, rhodopsin. She holds dual undergraduate degrees in Biology and in Chemistry from the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research combines computational and experimental studies of protein structure, dynamics and function with particular emphasis on membrane proteins. She has published over 150 papers with an h-index of 40 and has received a number of awards, including the FP7 People Funded Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, the Sofya Kovalevskaya Award of the Humboldt Foundation, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Award, the NSF CAREER Award and the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award of the Biophysical Society for her “remarkable work in computational biology embracing the full spectrum of experimental biophysics.

Martin Laforest

ISARA Corporation, Canada

Building a Quantum Workforce Starts Early

Practical and impactful quantum technologies are slowly rolling out and we can only expect a massive growth of the quantum industry in the coming years and decades. Moving forward, we will need a quantum-aware workforce as diversified as the subject matter: scientists, engineers, business-marketing-communication people, patent lawyers, etc. An early exposure to quantum technologies and the underlying science is paramount to attract the quantity and diversity of talent needed. We will present a series of quantum-related lesson plans, experiments and pedagogical approaches targeted at high school and undergraduate/graduate students that showed great success over that past 10 years.

About the Speaker:Martin Laforest is part of the product management team at ISARA Corporation, a Waterloo-based cybersecurity company specialising in crypto-agile and quantum-safe security solutions. Martin has developed a career communicating the complexity and strategic impacts of quantum technologies to key stakeholders, including government, the media, the general public and industry partners. Prior to joining ISARA, Martin was the head of scientific outreach at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing. He created a variety of educational and informational

Heather Lewandowski

University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Preparing for the Quantum Revolution: What Is the Role of Higher Education?

Quantum sensing, quantum networking and communication, and quantum computing have attracted significant attention recently, as these quantum technologies could offer significant advantages over existing technologies. In order to accelerate the commercialization of these quantum technologies, the workforce must be equipped with the necessary skills. Through a qualitative study of the quantum industry, in a series of interviews with 21 U.S. companies carried out in Fall 2019, we describe the types of activities being carried out in the quantum industry, profile the types of jobs that exist, and describe the skills valued across the quantum industry, as well as in each type of job. The current routes into the quantum industry are detailed, providing a picture of the current role of higher education in training the quantum workforce. Finally, we present the training and hiring challenges the quantum industry is facing and how higher education may optimize the important role it is currently playing.**Michael F. J. Fox, Benjamin M. Zwickl, and H. J. Lewandowski, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, 020131 (2020)

About the Speaker:Heather Lewandowski received her BS in physics from Michigan Tech in 1997 and her PhD in physics from the University of Colorado in 2002. She was then an NRC Postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. She is currently a professor and associate chair of physics at the University of Colorado, and a fellow of JILA. She leads two research programs, one in experimental molecular physics, and the other in physics education research. Her molecular physics research efforts focus on studying interactions and reactions of cold, chemically important molecules and ions. Her physics education research program studies ways to increase students’ proficiency in scientific practices such as using models and quantitative reasoning in

Celia Merzbacher

QED-C, The Quantum Consortium, USA

What Skills Will the Quantum Industry Need?

The practical application of quantum information science and technology (QIST) will require a variety of engineers, with expertise in electronics, photonics, software and systems. The Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) represents a broad cross-section of the quantum industry ecosystem. Results of a survey of QED-C members about the jobs to be filled in the next five years and associated skills, knowledge and degrees will be presented. A wide variety of engineering skills are expected to be in high demand and students who have hands-on experience are in short supply. QIST is an emerging field and industry and needs a workforce that is agile and multidisciplinary. As the QIST industry grows, engineering education will need to evolve in parallel.

About the Speaker:Celia Merzbacher is the QED-C Deputy Director and is part of the leadership team that is creating the consortium, which was established by the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018. Previously, Dr. Merzbacher was Vice President for Innovative Partnerships at the Semiconductor Research Corporation, a consortium of the semiconductor industry. In 2003-2008, she was Assistant Director for Technology R&D in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she oversaw the establishment and coordination of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. She also served as Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Dr. Merzbacher began her career as a materials scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., where her research led to six patents and numerous scientific and technical publications. She has served as Chair of the National Materials and Manufacturing Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, on the Board of Directors of ANSI, as well as on advisory boards of startups and university research centers.

Spyridon (Spiros) Michalakis

California Institute of Technology, USA

From Quantum Game Developers to Quantum Engineers

The first quantum revolution led to the development of solid-state physics and the birth of electrical and software engineering. The second quantum revolution is currently unfolding at a new frontier of science, the entanglement frontier. As we learn to harness aspects of the quantum realm with increasing precision and reliability at scales beyond the microscopic world, quantum engineers proficient at writing quantum software and building quantum hardware will lead the charge. To ensure a broad and diverse participation in the ranks of these engineers, partnerships between academia, industry, and government will play a crucial role. Drawing on Caltech’s collaboration with Google’s Quantum AI lab and NSF-seeded game studio, Quantum Realm Games, I will discuss how students from around the world will soon be able to engage with concepts such as quantum error-correction and hybrid classical/quantum systems engineering in the context of coding quantum-native games as quantum software running on quantum hardware in the Cloud.

About the Speaker:Spyridon (Spiros) Michalakis is research staff and manager of outreach at Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. His research focuses on quantum many-body physics, with an emphasis on topological aspects of quantum phases. His work with Matthew Hastings on the Quantum Hall Effect resolved the first of 13 significant open problems in mathematical physics.

His outreach efforts include credits as the science consultant on “Now You See Me 2” (Fox), “Ant-Man” (Marvel/Disney), “Ant-Man & The Wasp” (Marvel/Disney), and “Captain Marvel” (Marvel/Disney). Dr. Michalakis introduced the “Quantum Realm” into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his ideas around time travel informed the plot of “Avengers: Endgame” (Marvel/Disney) and “Bill and Ted: Face the Music”.

Dr. Michalakis has production and writing credits on “Anyone Can Quantum,” a short film pitting Paul Rudd against Stephen Hawking in a game of Quantum Chess. The YouTube short, directed by Alex Winter and narrated by Keanu Reeves, went viral soon after its release, leading to a sequel starring Zoe Saldana and John Cho. Dr. Michalakis is currently working with partners at Google and Quantum Realm Games to implement the game of Quantum Chess on Google’s state-of-the-art quantum computer.

David Reilly

Microsoft Corporation, University of Sydney, Australia

Building the Talent Pipeline for a Quantum Future

Realising a quantum computer at the scale needed to address ‘real-world’ problems is a formidable scientific, technical, and industrial challenge requiring new multi-disciplinary approaches to research, engineering, and work-force training over a sustained period. This talk will outline the graduate attributes of a quantum engineer and suggest approaches to training that leverage industry, government, and academia. Microsoft’s global effort in quantum computing will be used as a case study.

About the Speaker:David J. Reilly joined Microsoft in 2017 where he is Partner and Research Manager of Microsoft Quantum – Sydney and a Professor in the School of Physics, The University of Sydney. The focus of much of Reilly’s work is at the quantum-classical interface and the scaleup of quantum technology. As a leader in Microsoft’s quantum effort he bridges the gap between fundamental quantum physics and the engineering approaches need to scale quantum devices into quantum machines. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, Reilly was a postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard

Charles Robinson

IBM Public Sector Leader Quantum Computing, USA

Quantum Information Science (QIS) for the Practicing Engineer

Professional Engineers (PE’s) and Engineer’s in training (EIT) who want to understand how Quantum Information Science Research efforts will eventually impact current engineering disciplines and professional certification process with the emergence of Quantum Computing, Communications, and Sensor’s. We will discuss how QIS gets integrated into existing training, and certification landscape for existing PE & EIT members and ways practicing engineers can retool their skill sets.

About the Speaker:Charles has over 30 years in engineering, and management that drive revenue growth and increase share in the Public Sector and Federal market. Charles has been a “Mission First” transformational leader with demonstrated record in planning and leading corporations that drive growth, contribute profitability, and increase share within the Public Sector and Federal market. In his current role as IBM Quantum Computing Public Sector leader, he is responsible for preparing the National Security Community for the Quantum Computer Age. Charles also drove the formation of the IBM HBCU Quantum Computer Program. Charles also managed the Defense & Intelligence business for IBM. Charles graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Charles also has a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Charles started his career in the United States Navy.

Thomas Searles

Howard University, USA

Broadening the Quantum Base for a Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive Quantum-Smart Workforce

Here, we share perspectives on training and mentoring a diverse, quantum-smart workforce through programs that are intentional and inclusive. Topics covered will include recent activities aimed at training Black physicists for the National Quantum Initiative Act and the AIP-led workshop on implementation based on the report from TEAM-UP (National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy). Importantly, the presentation will address the following questions in the context of quantum engineering program development: 1) How do we increase diversity in our quantum engineering students? 2) How can we build affordable hands-on quantum education at the undergraduate level? and 3) What are the best ways to educate quantum engineers in different university environments?

About the Speaker:Thomas A. Searles, Associate Professor of Physics at Howard University, is currently a Martin Luther King Visiting Professor at MIT and serves as the Director of the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center. Thomas received his PhD in Applied Physics in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at Rice University in 2011. His thesis work primarily focused on the magneto-optical properties of carbon nanotubes. Upon his appointment at Howard in the Fall of 2015, Thomas has established a new research program in applied and materials physics. In recognition for his research in light-matter interactions and his capability to train and mentor Black students in Physics and Engineering, Thomas was recently awarded the inaugural AIP-NSBP Joseph A. Johnson Award for

Jeffrey Shapiro

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Education for a Quantum Communication Engineer

The emergence of a quantum information age will require more than just Ph.D. scientists. Indeed, a large and quantum-educated workforce of baccalaureate and master’s engineers will likely be necessary. How this new workforce will be educated has yet to be determined. Will a bachelor’s degree be sufficient to enter the quantum workforce, or will master’s education be essential? Should quantum engineering be a new discipline warranting its own department, or would it be more appropriate to offer quantum engineering tracks within departments like electrical engineering or computer science? This talk will address these and other questions relating to quantum engineering education. Rather than trying to span the full panoply of quantum applications in computation, communication, and sensing, it will focus on quantum communication, broadly construed to include quantum-secured classical communication, quantum-enhanced transmission of classical information, and communication of quantum information.

About the Speaker:Jeffrey H. Shapiro is the Julius A. Stratton Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has more than 40 years of research experience in quantum optical communication and sensing, and he has published seminal articles on the generation, detection, and applications of squeezed-state light beams, on quantum and classical ghost imaging, and on quantum illumination. Prof. Shapiro is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Institute of Physics, the Optical Society, and SPIE.

Lincoln Carr

Colorado School of Mines, USA

About the Speaker:Lincoln Carr has been a quantum researcher for 25 years, the last 15 at the Colorado School of Mines. He has served as an APS officer, as the quantum engineering program director at Mines, and will be a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State starting this Fall

Corey Stambaugh

Office of Science and Technology Policy​, USA

About the Speaker:Corey Stambaugh is a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He currently serves as the Industrial Liaison for the National Quantum Coordination Office at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he leads workforce development activities for QIS. Corey has a PhD in physics and has authored papers focused on precision measurement, micro-fabricated devices, and mass metrology. Corey is a past recipient of the NIST Allen V. Astin Measurement Science Award and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at Montgomery College.

Dawn Tilbury

National Science Foundation, USA

About the Speaker:Dawn Tilbury is Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation Directorate for Engineering.

The Directorate is charged with supporting engineering research and education critical to the nation’s future and fostering innovations to benefit society. It provides about 32 percent of the federal funding for fundamental research in engineering at academic institutions, and distributes about 1,600 research awards across the fields of engineering each year.

Tilbury, a professor of mechanical engineering and former associate dean for research at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, will retain her University of Michigan appointment and intends to return to the engineering faculty when her term with the NSF is completed.

A professor at University of Michigan since 1995, in both mechanical and electrical engineering, Tilbury has a background in systems and control engineering. She is the inaugural chair of the Robotics Steering Committee at the university, and has identified and capitalized on opportunities to advance robotics research at the university.

She has been active in professional society and academic leadership positions, and has received numerous honors and awards for outstanding research and leadership. She has been a principal investigator on dozens of highly-competitive federal awards, including an NSF Faculty Early Career Development in 1998. She has supervised dozens of graduate students and planned the Big 10 Women’s Workshops, a multi-university mentoring and networking workshop series for junior women faculty in engineering, in 2010, 2013 and 2016.

Tilbury received her BS degree in Electrical Engineering, University of Minnesota, and her MS and PhD degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include control theory and applications; logic control for manufacturing systems including diagnostics, fault handling and recovery; modular control systems; networked control systems; performance management of computing systems; and web-based tutorials for controls education.