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JQI Fellow Mohammad Hafezi and JQI Graduate Researchers Alireza Seif and Hwanmun Kim have received an award from Google to support research identifying and developing problems that simple quantum computers might help solve. The work could bridge the divide between demonstrating quantum supremacy, as Google claimed to do in October, and building practical quantum computers that can run established algorithms.“It is an exciting time when industry and academia work together on quantum problems,” Hafezi says. “I am looking forward to collaborating with the Google AI team,” he adds, referring to Google’s artificial intelligence research arm.

JQI Fellows Charles Clark and Victor Galitski will launch the fifth edition of their Coursera class on quantum physics Jan. 20, 2020. Alireza Parhizkar, a graduate student at JQI, will serve as teaching assistant.“The course begins by establishing the conceptual grounds of quantum mechanics and promises an exciting journey,” says Parhizkar, who joined Galitski’s research group in the summer of 2019. “It fulfills this promise by immersing the learner in advanced subjects of quantum physics, like superconductivity and path integrals, and illustrating them with colorful exercises.”

The University of Maryland will hold a one-day symposium focusing on local research into quantum materials—condensed matter systems that exhibit strong quantum effects and hold promise as potential components in next-generation computers, sensors and other devices. The symposium will be held Sept. 26, 2019, on campus in the Kim Engineering Building.Hosted by UMD’s Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials (CNAM)—which will be renamed the Quantum Materials Center next month—the event will bring together researchers from the university’s Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering, in addition to researchers from the nearby National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Laboratory for Physical Sciences. Around 50 quantum materials researchers and institutional leaders are expected to attend. CNAM Director and Professor of Physics Johnpierre Paglione, together with Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) Fellow and Assistant Professor of Physics James Williams, organized the event, which will include talks on recent quantum materials research as well as reflections on collaborations that have formed among UMD researchers and also between researchers at UMD and area partners such as NIST.

Christopher Monroe, a JQI Fellow, Distinguished University Professor, and Bice Seci-Zorn Professor in the Department of Physics at UMD, has received the 2020 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.

JQI has named four new Fellows in 2019, bringing the total number to 35. All four of the new arrivals have appointments in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. One Fellow is also a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMD and another is a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The University of Maryland will host the 2nd North American Conference on Trapped Ions (NACTI) from July 22-26. This year’s conference comes two years after the inaugural meeting, which was held on the Boulder, Colorado campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). More than 230 students and researchers from around the globe, all working on the science of trapped atomic ions, will attend five days of sessions at the Edward St. John Learning & Teaching Center on campus at UMD.

Alexey Gorshkov, a JQI Fellow and a Fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The honor, which is the most prestigious offered by the United States Government to young researchers, was announced July 2. More than 300 scientists and engineers around the country were recognized by PECASE this year for contributions to their respective fields, as well as for their accomplishments in scientific leadership, education, and outreach. This was the first time the award has been given out since 2017, and the winners included researchers who were nominated by federal agencies from 2015-2017.

Kevin Qian of Montgomery Blair High School placed 2nd in the Physics and Astronomy category at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2019 with his research topic “Heisenberg-Scaling Measurement Protocol for Analytic Functions with Quantum Sensor Networks.” Qian worked with Adjunct Associate Professor Alexey Gorshkov and graduate student researcher Zachary Eldredge in the University of Maryland Department of Physics, the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS).

JQI Fellow Mohammad Hafezi has been named a finalist for the 2019 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.He is one of 31 researchers competing for three Blavatnik National Laureate Awards in the categories of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Chemistry and Life Sciences, and is one of 10 finalists in Physical Sciences and Engineering. Each of the three National Laureates will win $250,000—the world’s largest unrestricted prize for early-career scientists. The awards are sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences.

Seventeen theoretical physics faculty across 12 institutions have established a new Simons Collaboration on Ultra-Quantum Matter. The team, which includes Victor Galitski, a Chesapeake Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Department of Physics and Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, will investigate innovative ideas about how quantum physics works on macroscopic scales. This new effort will be led by Professor Ashvin Vishwanath at Harvard University and is supported under the Simons Collaborations in Mathematics and Physical Sciences program, which aims to “stimulate progress on fundamental scientific questions of major importance in mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science."