IQC community welcomes rising stars of quantum information science and technology
The week-long scientific event, Quantum Innovators (QI), showcased exceptional work of postdoctoral fellows.
By Naomi Grosman
Earlier this month, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) opened its doors to rising star postdoctoral fellows in quantum information science and technology from around the world for a week of information sharing and networking.
The Quantum Innovators workshop is IQC’s flagship scientific event showcasing the exceptional work of postdoctoral fellows and junior professors and welcomes them to be part of the worldwide IQC community.
Hosted annually by IQC since 2012, this year the institute welcomed researchers from MIT, Harvard, Université de Sherbrooke, Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics, University of Warsaw, Standford, and other renowned higher education institutions.
“As IQC’s scientific highlight, Quantum Innovators is an exciting time to hear from the up-and-coming generation of leaders in the field and get a view of where the field is going. We were honoured to have them here and showcase our institute and our role as the anchor point of Canada’s quantum ecosystem.”
-Norbert Lütkenhaus, IQC executive director.
Throughout the five-day event, participants engaged with local researchers and exchanged ideas during seminars that covered the latest research on a range of topics related to quantum information and science theory and applied research in computer science, mathematics, experimental science and engineering.
The participants also toured research laboratories and the research infrastructure of the Quantum Nanofabrication and Characterization Facility at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre and the Research Advancement Centre.
These tours provided an in-depth look at the facilities and presentations from research group members, all of which highlighted IQC’s state-of-the-art resources and globally recognized research.
One of the week’s highlights was a social gathering centered on a poster demonstration session, which drew in over 100 attendees from the broader IQC community of faculty and graduate students. The gathering allowed attendees and IQC grad students to practice presentation skills and foster professional relationships.
The organizing committee included IQC faculty and professors Michal Bajcsy from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, William Slofstra, from the Department of Pure Mathematics, David Gosset and Ashwin Nayak from the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, and Shalev Ben-David from the Cheriton School of Computer Science.
"The Quantum Innovators workshop at IQC traditionally brings together highly accomplished young researchers from a variety of quantum information areas, making it a unique space for cross-pollination of ideas and for establishing connections between the future leaders of the global quantum community."
- Michal Bajcsy, IQC faculty and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
These workshops held at IQC, University of Waterloo, are funded by the Institute for Quantum Computing, with partial contribution from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) as part of the Transformative Quantum Technologies research initiative.