Archive · Old QC Hack
Mentors 2021
Mentors and Speakers
Meet all the amazing mentors, speakers, and panelists of QC Hack 2021!
Abhigyan Mishra - Qiskit Advocate
Technical Mentor and Judge
Abhigyan Mishra is a Qiskit Advocate and Computer Science major at Delhi University. Although only introduced to quantum computing a year ago, Abhigyan has rapidly learned as much as he can about the field. He has a certification in quantum photonics, quantum mechanics, and also writes a blog (Qftics). He enjoys creating tutorials, studying algorithms, and learning about quantum simulation.
Albert Benseny Cases - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
I got interested in quantum optics and quantum information while studying physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. As an undergraduate, I joined the Quantum and Atom Optics group and stayed through my PhD. I studied adiabatic techniques to manipulate ultracold atoms, but also trying to understand some of the quantum quirkiness going on in the system. After the PhD, I was a postdoc for four years in Japan (at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) and a year in Denmark (at Aarhus University), where I worked on a wide variety of quantum control techniques. After my adventures in academia, I moved to Australia and I joined Q-CTRL over a year ago as a Senior Quantum Control Engineer. I love science outreach and have taught quantum courses for a general audience, as well as participated in physics exhibits and programming workshops for children.
Anamita Guha - IBM
Mentorship Coffee Hour
As a pioneering industry leader, Anamita Guha boldly integrates product management with go-to-market and growth disciplines to create new and diverse markets, to scale and manage high-performing global teams, and to build inclusive communities for emerging technologies. She is currently the Head of Growth and a Global Lead of Product Management at IBM Quantum, where she is working at the intersection of quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Anamita is committed to building a more beautiful, inclusive, and ethical future by helping everyone climb their "hierarchy of needs".
Anamita is well versed in the future of computing, data and technology ethics, and applications of AI. She has addressed the United Nations, spoken at major conferences around the world including keynotes at TEDx and SXSW, and launched artificial intelligence initiatives in collaboration with law and policymakers.
Anamita is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of women innovators and pioneers. As a national ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anamita serves as a visible role model and advocate for women in STEM. In 2021, a life-size statue of Anamita celebrating her dedication to closing the gender gap in STEM careers will debut in Dallas as a part of the largest collection of women statues in one place, ever.
Anamita and her work have been featured in media outlets including Forbes, TechCrunch, Marie Claire, Lifehacker, and more. She was named as one of the “Top 25 Software Product Executives Of 2020”, “9 Millennial AI Leaders to follow” in 2019, and included in “6 Women in STEM to watch out for” in 2018.
Anamita has spent most of her career prior to IBM at early to mid-stage startups, including launching and selling her own company in 2014. She holds a degree in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley, and currently lives in New York, New York. In her free time, Anamita practices yoga and meditation, hosts trivia nights, and listens to rap music.
Andre Carvalho - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Andre Carvalho is the Head of Quantum Control Solutions at Q-CTRL. He completed his PhD at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro before joining the Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden as a postdoctoral fellow. He then spent more than a decade as a researcher at the Australian National University, where he worked across disciplines, bringing together expertise from physicists and engineers to develop control solutions for quantum technology problems. He has also worked as a senior research fellow at Griffith University. Andre has a vast international experience and is widely recognized for his contributions to the field of quantum control.
Andrea Coladangelo - qBraid
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Andrea is a postdoc at UC Berkeley, and a co-founder of qBraid. His research interests are broadly in quantum information, with a focus on quantum cryptography. He is particularly interested in understanding what cryptographic tasks can be realized using quantum information, and under what assumptions. https://sites.google.com/view/andrea-coladangelo/home
Andres Paz - Microsoft
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Anurag Mishra - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
I am a Senior Quantum Control Engineer at Q-CTRL. I am at Github https://github.com/anuragm
César Rodríguez - Strangeworks
|Hello〉+|World〉: Hacking Quantum Today and Innovating in QC Panel
Dr. César A. Rodríguez Rosario is the Chief Scientific Officer of Strangeworks.
Prior to Strangeworks, he worked at Harvard University and Max Planck Institute as a Theoretical Physicists with a focus on Quantum Computing. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Texas in Austin, and a B.S. in Computer Engineering. He has 20 years of experience in quantum computation and over 1000 citations. He has given talks at Oxford University, MIT, ETH Zürich, Tokyo Tech, Hong Kong University, FermiLab, NEXT, among many other places. The Puerto Rican natural affirms that the universe is made of quantum information, and his job is to hack reality.
He dreams of quantum technologies changing the world.
Che Allen - IBM
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Cheniqua “Che” Allen works in IBM Quantum as a Project and Events Manager for Workforce Advocacy. She is energetic and outgoing with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. She is known for putting clients first and executing with speed and quality. Since joining IBM in 2000, Che has held different positions within several divisions of IBM. These varied experiences result in a broad view of the company and its various functional areas.
Che graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a degree in Business Finance. She is passionate about developing strong relationships and giving back to the community. Che is a “go getter,” and an avid listener. She can often be found mentoring or assisting associates increase their understanding on how to make the biggest impact by putting their best foot forward.
Che’s leadership skills extend outside of her immediate work. She seeks out opportunities to give back to IBM and the community at large via IBM’s Boys or Girls camps, Meals on Wheels, Urban Ministries, Durham Rescue Mission, Habitat for Humanity, and her church. She is also the Chairperson for the Community Service committee of IBM’s Black Business Resource Group as well as a member of the Women’s Business Resource Group.
Bálint Pató - Google
Mentorship Coffee Hour and Journeys in Quantum Computing Panel
Balint Pato is a senior software engineer on the Google Quantum AI team with 15 years of software engineering experience. He got his BSc in Computer Science from ELTE, Budapest, Hungary in 2010. He joined Google in 2017 and the Quantum AI team in 2020. He currently leads the development of Cirq, Google's open source quantum computing framework.
Delbert Murphy - Microsoft
Intro to QC Workshop
Doug Strain - Google
Mentorship Coffee Hour and Quantum Chess Workshop
Efrat Shabtai - Microsoft
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Elisa Baumer - IBM
IBM Qiskit Workshop
Elisa is a PhD student at ETH Zurich and working part-time for the Qiskit team, helping with outreach activities and developing educational material. In her free time she loves to dance acrobatic Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Emma Schmidgall - Microsoft
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Hwajung Kang - IBM
Technical Mentor
Hwajung Kang obtained her Ph.D in Physics from Dartmouth College. Since June 2020, she has been working in the IBM Quantum team as a Quantum Computing Education Developer, focusing on creating quantum computing educational material at the beginning to intermediate level, such as quantum computing labs in the Qiskit Textbook. https://qiskit.org/textbook/ch-labs/index.html"
James Weaver - IBM
IBM Qiskit Workshop
James Weaver is a developer, author, and speaker with a passion for quantum computing. He is a Java Champion, and a JavaOne Rockstar. James has written books including Inside Java, Beginning J2EE, the Pro JavaFX series, and Java with Raspberry Pi. As an IBM Quantum Developer Advocate, James speaks internationally about quantum computing with Qiskit at quantum and classical computing conferences. He tweets as @JavaFXpert, and blogs at http://JavaFXpert.com and http://CulturedEar.com.
Jon Skerrett - Microsoft
Intro to QC Workshop
Junye Huang - IBM
Mentorship Coffee Hour
"Creating QPong: A quantum journey" Workshop
Junye Huang is a Quantum Developer Advocate at IBM. He is part of the Qiskit community team whose mission is building an open, diverse and inclusive quantum community. He is focusing on promoting quantum education in the Asia Pacific region. He organized the first Qiskit university hackathon in the world and is a guest lecturer for two quantum computing courses at National University of Singapore. In addition, he is supporting regional and global educational initiatives such as the IBM Quantum Challenge and the Qiskit Global Summer School. His passion for quantum computers drives him to create educational games for quantum computers such as QPong, a quantum version of Pong which he created at the first Qiskit camp. QPong was subsequently ported to a physical Quantum arcade machine and toured around Europe, including the EU Quantum Flagship Event in Helsinki in October 2019. Twitter: @HuangJunye
Kanav Setia - qBraid (CEO)
qBraid Workshop
Kanav Setia is a co-founder and the CEO of qBraid Co., a quantum computing startup. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Dartmouth College and a bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. While at Dartmouth, Dr. Setia's research focused on quantum algorithms for simulating quantum chemistry systems.
Kareem H. El-Safty - Qiskit Advocate
Technical Mentor and Judge
Kareem H. El-Safty is a Research Assistant at Wigner Research Centre for Physics. He is an AI Team Leader at DevisionX focusing on AutoML solutions for machine vision industries. He’s doing his master’s degree in computer engineering especially in Quantum Machine Learning (QML). He’s interested in the Continuous Variable model of quantum computing to be used in QML. Besides his work, he is an active member of Alexandria Quantum Computing Group, where he led several workshops in Qiskit since he is a Qiskit Advocate and coordinated a quantum winter school for Egyptian researchers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemelsafty/
Kayla Lee - IBM
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Dr. Kayla Lee is a growth product manager at IBM Quantum. In this capacity, she leads strategic initiatives to grow the open source Qiskit Community with new global partnerships, designs engagement opportunities to provide skill development and technical exploration, and creates pathways to a diverse and equitable quantum workforce. She is motivated to make complex, scientific topics like quantum computing and emerging technology not only accessible, but also engaging. Kayla partners with students, researchers, and clients worldwide to address technical challenges with new computing technologies.
Kayla joined IBM Quantum in 2018 as an industry consultant, where she worked with several Fortune 500 companies to explore potential quantum computing applications across industries, including healthcare & life sciences, financial services, and media & entertainment.
Kayla holds a BS in Molecular Biology from Hampton University and a PhD in Systems Biology from Harvard University. You can find more about her at her LinkedIn.
Mariia Mykhailova - Microsoft
Journeys in Quantum Computing Panel, Mentorship Coffee Hour, and QDK/Grover's Workshop
Mariia Mykhailova is a Senior Software Engineer on Microsoft Quantum Systems team. She focuses on education and outreach, figuring out ways to help people learn quantum computing effectively and to make it exciting. Mariia is the original author and maintainer of the Quantum Katas project – an open-source collection of hands-on tutorials and programming exercises for learning quantum computing – and the organizer of Q# Coding Contest series. https://twitter.com/tcNickolas
Martin Roetteler - Microsoft
Mentorship Coffee Hour and Innovating in QC Panel
Martin’s main interest is to discover new quantum algorithms, in particular for problems where there are exponential speedups over the best known classical algorithms. Examples include factoring, discrete log, and quantum simulation. He obtained a Ph.D. in computer science from University of Karlsruhe, Germany (2001). In 2013, Martin joined the quantum computing team at Microsoft, Redmond, U.S.A., where he is a Principal Research Manager. Besides quantum algorithms, Martin works on synthesis and optimization of quantum circuits and is passionate about the question “How to program a quantum computer?”
Mathias Soeken - Microsoft
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Mathias Soeken is a senior software engineer in the Microsoft Quantum team. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Bremen in Germany and has been a research scientist at EPFL in Switzerland before joining Microsoft. Mathias is interested in concrete and optimized implementations of quantum algorithms to understand what applications can be solved by quantum computers in the future.
Matt McEwen - Google
Google - Hardware
Michael Biercuk - Q-CTRL (CEO)
Innovating in QC Panel
Michael is Professor of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technology at The University of Sydney where he leads a team working to develop advanced technology powered by quantum physics. Out of this research, Michael saw a gap in the market for a company which made this knowledge available outside of the lab. Michael is also Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems. Michael completed his Masters and PhD at Harvard University. After university, he held a research fellowship in the Ion Storage Group at NIST Boulder under the supervision of 2012 Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. David Wineland. He has also worked as a consultant to DARPA, helping steer government investments in quantum information and next-generation computer architectures. As one of the world’s leading authorities on quantum physics and technology, Michael is a regular contributor to both the technical literature and the popular press. He is a TEDx speaking alumnus and winner of the 2015 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher.
Michael Hush - Q-CTRL (CSO)
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Michael completed a Ph.D in quantum physics at the Australian National University. He was awarded the University Medal for highest undergraduate achievement in Theoretical Physics, ANU. He has since worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nottingham and Senior academic in the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra at ADFA. Michael developed one of the earliest open-source quantum control optimization software, accelerated with machine learning, targeted at supporting academic research.Michael was hired by Q-CTRL in 2017, promoted from initial role as Lead Quantum Control Engineer, to Head of Quantum Science and Engineering, before promotion to C-Suite.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrhush/
Github: https://github.com/michaelhush
Nick Bronn - IBM
Technical Mentor
Nick Bronn is a Research Staff Member in the Experimental Quantum Computing group at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. He received B.S.'s in Applied Mathematics and Physics and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics from Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Illinois supported in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Since joining IBM in 2013, Nick has been responsible for qubit device design, packaging, and cryogenic measurement, working towards scaling up larger numbers of qubits on a device and integration with novel implementations of microwave and cryogenic hardware.
Olivia Lanes - IBM
Journeys in Quantum Computing Panel
Dr. Olivia Lanes is a recent PhD graduate in physics from the University of Pittsburgh. She did her degree on experimental quantum computing, focusing on superconducting qubit read-out and amplification. Currently at IBM she works in a dual role as an experimental researcher and as a hardware community developer in education.
Per Liebermann - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Rebecca Krauthamer
Keynote Speech
Rebecca Krauthamer is the Founder and CEO of Quantum Thought as well as Founder and Chief Product Officer at QuSecure. She is very active in the quantum computing community, serving on the Global Futures Council on Quantum Computing for the World Economic Forum and was recently named among the 12 Women Shaping Quantum Computing. A recent Forbes 30 under 30 winner in the category of science, she also serves on the advisory board of the AI Ethics Journal, is a member of the Newsweek Expert Forum, an advisor to SheQuantum, and is a frequent speaker on quantum computing and technology ethics. Rebecca holds a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Previously she founded Neural Edge Inc, where as its CTO, she built an advanced AI software platform for sales enablement.
Russell Huffman - IBM
Technical Mentor
Russell Huffman is the Qiskit Design Lead, working primarily on Qiskit’s educational material and digital properties. As a creative, Russell’s goal is to take emerging technology out of the lab and into the hands of masses. He has spent the past 5 years as a user experience designer working in the fields of quantum computing and artificial intelligence, working on products such as Watson Discovery and the IBM Quantum Experience. Russell is also invested in getting other creative people involved in the field of quantum computing by enabling art making and other creative projects that aren’t traditionally done with quantum computing.
Sayantan Pramanik - Qiskit Advocate
Technical Mentor and Judge
Sayantan Pramanik completed his graduation in Electronics Engineering in 2019, and has been working at TCS Research in the fields of Computer Vision and Quantum Computing, since. He has authored (and co-authored) four research papers, two of which have been accepted at QIP 2021 and YQIS 2021 conferences, and has one patent filed under US jurisdiction. He is a Qiskit Advocate, and has hands-on experience in Qiskit, Amazon Braket SDK and Pennylane.
Sean Howell - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Hi! My name is Sean Howell. I am the Head of Q-CTRL US. I studied physics and math at University of Maryland, and have spent 15+ years in the technology industry working at startups and large companies on problems spanning quantum, robotics, fintech, geospatial, and machine learning.
Stefan Elrington - IBM
Innovating in QC Panel
Stefan Elrington is the Global Startup Lead for IBM Quantum where he manages the startup program, and partnerships with QC startups. Prior to IBM Quantum Stefan earned his PhD in Physics from Yale, and also developed go-to-market and growth strategies for clients while at the Boston Consulting Group.
Utkarsh Azad - Qiskit Advocate
Technical Mentor and Judge
Utkarsh Azad is a graduate research student at Center for Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics (CCNSB), IIIT Hyderabad. He has been actively working in the field of quantum computing for about 3 years, and his research interests lie in the symbiotic relationship of quantum computing, quantum software, machine learning and natural sciences..
Va Barbosa - IBM
Technical Mentor
Va Barbosa is a software engineer for the Qiskit Community team at IBM Quantum. He is focused on building open source tools and creating educational content to assist developers, researchers, students, and educators learn about quantum computing. He fueled by his passion to help others and his enthusiasm for open source technology.
Viktor Perunicic - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Hi, I'm a Senior Quantum Control Engineer at Q-CTRL, seek me out if you're interested in firmware-level control for quantum computing and quantum sensing. For more info see https://www.linkedin.com/in/perunicic or get in touch on https://twitter.com/viktorperunicic
Winona Murphy - IBM
Technical Mentor
Winona Murphy recently received her B.A. in Computer Science and Physics at Wesleyan University. Currently, she is an IBM Quantum Support Team member, who assists the IBM Quantum Network with Qiskit, IBM Quantum Tools, and any questions in between. Winona is also a host for the IBM Quantum Webinar series, and a Qiskit contributor.
Yuval Baum - Q-CTRL
Mentorship Coffee Hour
Hi, I'm Yuval and I'm a Lead Quantum Automation Scientist at Q-CTR. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuval-baum/