About

I'm a PhD student at Michigan State University in the department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering (CMSE), also pursuing a dual PhD in Physics. In 2017, I received a B.S. with Distinction in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I do research in quantum computing and quantum information science. I'm interested in both the physics of computation and the computation of physics -- that is, what quantum physics can tell us about information and computer science, and how quantum computers can solve practical problems in physics and related fields.

News

  • (05-02-2019) My second year of graduate school is in the books! My final project for Physics 855/955: (Relativistic) Quantum Field Theory, was on quantum algorithms for simulating scalar quantum fields. If interested, you can check out my code on notebook viewer or see my slides for a presentation of the method & results. I also finally made a teaching portfolio as a project in Dr. Joyce Parker's great course, Teaching College Science. In two days I leave for New York to start as a Quantum Computing Applications Researcher Intern at IBM Q. 
  • (04-10-2019) I received a Future Academic Scholars in Teaching (FAST) Fellowship from The Graduate School at Michigan State University. The $2k will be used to support curriculum development for a quantum computing course at MSU as well as education research in quantum information science.
  • (04-07-2019) Yesterday I spent the day at the MSU Science Festival, a fantastic outreach event that happens every year at MSU. We communicated the fun of quantum mechanics and quantum computing with magnets levitating above superconductors and superconducting  qubits  via the IBM Quantum Experience. May thanks to Dr. Johannes Pollanen and the LHQS for putting this together. [Group photo.]
  • (03-05-2019) My first talk at APS March wasn't a disaster! despite not starting to prepare until Sunday. (Qiskit camp.) You can find my slides here and on my publications page.
  • (03-02-2019) I attended the first Qiskit camp held by IBM Research, where my team won the judges' first prize for implementing analytic quantum gradient descent in Qiskit Aqua! (Pull request coming soon, plus future work on higher order gradients for optimization.) I'm now in Boston for APS March, where I'll be giving a talk about quantum computer programming and quantum software on Tuesday. (Session F27, Room 160C @ 1:03 pm.)
  • (02-23-2019) I'm honored to have been awarded one of five Disciplinary Leadership Fellowships from the College of Graduate Students at Michigan State University. The $2k fellowship will be used to directly support the QuIC Seminar and other quantum events at MSU.
  • (01-20-2019) I'll be giving a talk on NISQAI's initial directions and design philosophy at the first ever Quantum Computing Devroom at FOSDEM 2019 in Brussels, Belgium on Sunday, February 3rd. (Slides)
  • (01-20-2019) QIP 2019 was a blast! I had a great time presenting my poster, seeing new research, and attending the after hour shenanigans. Thanks to the conference itself for providing student support and CMSE for covering the rest of the expenses for me to attend.
  • (12-28-2018) Next summer (2019), I'll be a Quantum Computing Applications Research Intern at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY. I'm very excited to work with some of the best in the business on quantum algorithms.
  • (12-12-2018) Thanks to EeroQ, I attended Day 3 of Quantum to Business 2018 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Huge thanks to the generous Nick Farina and Johannes Pollanen for the invite and support!
  • (10-24-2018) Another pre-print from the LANL Quantum Computing Summer School has been finished! Here, we design a new variational algorithm for quantum state diagonalization and discuss applications ranging from condensed matter physics to machine learning. (Link to paper.)
  • (09-20-2018) My proposal, along with Yousif Almulla, Nic Ezzell, Joe Iosue, and Arkin Tikku, for NISQAI was one of five recipients of the Unitary Fund Grant. More information about this project can be found on our GitHub page.
  • (08-17-2018) My poster "Quantum-assisted quantum compiling" won the Outstanding Poster Presentation in Physics award at the Los Alamos National Laboratory 2018 Student Symposium. This poster was based on the paper written during the summer school. 
  • (08-12-2018) I received a travel scholarship from the Erwin Schrödinger Institute for Mathematics and Physics to attend the 2018 YQIS Conference and CoQuS Summer School at the University of Vienna from September 17-21. 
  • (07-02-2018) We have published our first paper at the LANL Quantum Computing Summer School, Quantum assisted quantum compiling, where we use quantum computers themselves to compile quantum algorithms.
  • (06-22-2018) My paper "Overview and comparison of gate level quantum software platforms" is now featured on Quantum Computing Report in the Scorecards section. (arXiv link here.)
  • (04-14-2018) I presented my work on classically simulating quantum computers at the APS April 2018 meeting. The slides and paper can be found on this page.
  • (02-18-2018) I was one of ten students internationally awarded the first ever 2018 Quantum Computing Summer School Fellowship from Los Alamos National Lab. I'll be spending ten weeks at Los Alamos this summer doing research in quantum computing.
  • (02-17-2018) I presented some of my research at the 10th annual Graduate Academic Conference at Michigan State University. A pdf of my presentation, titled Quantum Teleportation with Photons, can be found on this page.
  • (11-30-2017) I gave a talk on how timing qubits can simplify an optical simulation of the quantum teleportation circuit  at the Quantum Information Processing Seminar at the University of Michigan.
  • (11-27-2017) We are CMSE, a short video about MSU's new department, has been released!