For his outstanding academic achievements and outreach work at IQC, Deny Hamel has been awarded the Vanier Graduate Scholarship by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC).
The scholarship will allow Hamel, who has earned near-perfect grades in his Master’s degree, to pursue his doctoral studies to the same level of excellence.
“Deny’s academic track record is extremely impressive,” said his thesis supervisor, IQC faculty member Kevin Resch. “He clearly has the intellectual capabilities, communication skills and the drive to be a stellar researcher. This scholarship is richly deserved.”
Hamel was one of six University of Waterloo students to earn a Vanier Graduate Scholarship from NSERC or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) this year. The other UW recipients are Ivan Kantor (Chemical Engineering), Stephen Inglis (Physics and Astronomy), Lee Michael Huntington (Chemistry), Manjana Milkoreit and Ricardo Tranjan (both at the Balsillie School of International Affairs).
“My motivation for doing research has never been winning awards,” Hamel said. “Research is just something I want to do. I feel very fortunate to have been rewarded for doing things I love.”
Hamel’s MSc work has focused on the development of new sources of entangled photon pairs using nonlinear materials — a crucial facet of quantum computing research.
This work led to Hamel’s co-authoring of a paper titled “Cluster-state quantum computing enhanced by high-fidelity generalized measurements,” which was published in Physical Review Letters.
Despite his busy academic schedule, Hamel finds time to volunteer in scientific outreach events and camps, participate in student politics and play in IQC’s recreational hockey games.
“With this scholarship, I will be privileged as I will not have to worry about funding,” Hamel said. “This will allow me to fully dedicate myself to my research here at IQC.”
Founded in 2002, the mission of the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) is to aggressively explore and advance the application of quantum mechanical systems to a vast array of relevant information processing techniques.
A part of the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ont., Canada, IQC creates a truly unique environment fostering cutting-edge research and collaboration between researchers in the areas of computer, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences.
At the time of this release, IQC has 17 faculty members, 22 postdoctoral fellows and over 55 students and research assistants, as well as a support staff of 18.
The Institute for Quantum Computing acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through Industry Canada and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation.