April 2, 2024
Over the winter quarter, QuantumX’s Accelerated Quantum Engineering and Technology (AQET) students met with and learned from leading engineers and scientists in the quantum information field. Speakers from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and a wide variety of other institutions gave students a fresh perspective on their research, emerging technologies, and possible career paths.
“Although the AQET program’s seminar series is a regular part of our curriculum, this was the first quarter that students met industry experts, giving them a wider range of exposure to careers in the quantum field,” said Kai-Mei Fu, chair of QuantumX and the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professor in the Departments of Physics and Electrical & Computer Engineering. “Early-stage graduate students learned about the many fields that contribute to quantum information and technology while meeting different people from many different backgrounds. This will help students become leaders in the field.”
The Graduate Quantum Information Seminar, EE 500 Q, is a requirement of the AQET curriculum. Each winter quarter, guest speakers discuss their research, their career trajectory and answer students’ questions.
“Attending QuantumX’s AQET seminar series has been a game-changer for me,” said Chaman Gupta, an AQET scholar that started the program in 2021 and an MSE Ph.D. student. “Meeting industry pioneers like Matthew Hastings and Pavel Lougovski expanded my understanding of quantum technology and opened doors to potential career paths I hadn’t considered before. Their insights into real-world quantum technology challenges helped me understand the gap between my Ph.D. research and practical industry needs.”
Recommendations for speakers the next EE 500 Q course (winter 2025) can be emailed to uwqis@uw.edu.
Thank you to this year’s speakers:
Tony Ransford, Lead Physicist, Quantinuum
Pavel Lougovski, Quantum Cloud Builder, Amazon
Matthew Hastings, Principal Researcher, Microsoft
Stephen Jordan, Quantum AIgorithms Researcher, Google
Serena Eley, Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, UW
Jennifer Schloss, Scientist in quantum sensing, MIT Lincoln Lab
Ang Li, Computer Scientist, PNNL
Charles Marcus, Associate Chair of Materials Science and Engineering, UW
Roberta Sessoli, Professor, Chemistry, University of Florence
LaVonne Dorsey, Executive Coach, LaVonne Dorsey & Associates