Tor Aamodt is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia where he has been a faculty member since 2006. His current research focuses on the architecture of general purpose GPUs and energy efficient computing. Most recently his group has been exploring how to more efficiently train deep neural networks and exploring how to improve graphics processor unit (GPU) architectures for graphics and computing.

Daria obtained her PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and started specializing in physics education and educational development while doing postdoctoral work in non-equilibrium quantum field theory and adiabatic quantum computing.

She (co-)created and taught lecture courses, labs, studio physics materials and labatorials for students in physics, engineering, mathematics and other programs at universities in Canada and Germany. As collaborator or co-PI on several Teaching and Learning Development Grants, she has studied the effectiveness of those instructional designs and shared the findings in publications and at conferences. As educational developer, Daria worked with over a hundred faculty members across SFU on curriculum review, program development, and teaching best practices, and collaborated on institution-wide teaching and learning initiatives.

Daria recently joined the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University as Teaching Faculty Member and looks forward to further advancing physics and quantum education. For Quantum BC, she serves as the Chair of the Education Committee and has been collaborating on the development, implementation and assessment of workshops and courses. She is also the Chair of the Division of Physics Education (DPE) at CAP (Canadian Association of Physicists) and an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Physics, and has helped set up the Quantum Algorithms Institute in BC.

Sven Bachmann completed his doctoral studies at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the ETH in Zurich with a thesis entitled `Mathematical aspects of quantum charge transport and current fluctuations’. He is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UBC, where he moved in 2017. Sven’s research on topological aspects of condensed matter physics are motivated by quantum information theory (topological quantum computation by anyons is one of the possible implementation of quantum computing), by applications to metrology (the quantum Hall effect has been used to define a standard for electrical resistance) and by the simple beauty of the interplay between mathematics and physics. He enjoys the vastness of British Columbia’s wild coast, its mountains, coves and magnificent forests.

Mona Berciu obtained her PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1999. She joined UBC in 2002 and is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Her research interests focus on developing accurate variational approximations for answering key questions that arise in the study of strongly correlated systems: what are the characteristics of the quasiparticle that forms when a charge carrier becomes ”dressed” by a cloud of excitations such as phonons, magnons, etc.; what effective interactions arise between such quasiparticles through exchange of excitations between their clouds; and what is their combined influence on the properties of the host material. These types of calculations may benefit from the use of quantum computers for increasing their efficiency. Our results can also be used for the training of machine learning algorithms, whether classical or quantum based.

Arthur Blackburn is an Assistant Professor and Hitachi High-Tech Canada Research Chair, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, at the University of Victoria. He is also Co-Director of the Advanced Microscopy Facility, a facility within the Centre of Advanced Materials and Related Technologies at UVic. Prior to joining UVic he was Senior Research Scientist at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, embedded within the University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, where he completed his PhD. In the context of quantum computing, his current research looks towards means to use electron microscopy to characterize and identify single point defects or dopants within materials. These can either be detrimental or useful for quantum computing, depending on the device and situation. In a broader context, his research covers diffractive imaging and reconstruction techniques, sample modification in the electron microscope, and phased and shaped electron beams, and he has developed several patents in these areas.

Dr. Alexandre G. Brolo is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He obtained his M.Sc. from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil)and his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo (Canada) in 1998. Dr. Brolo’s research interests are on the fabrication of nanostructured metal surfaces; the investigation of their optical properties; and their application in single molecule spectroscopy.  Dr. Brolo has participated as author/co-author iin about 180 peer-reviewed research papers, reviews and book chapters. He is well-known for his work on the development of new types of surface Plasmon resonance sensors and on the field of surface-enhanced spectroscopy, particularly on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The Brolo group is investigating the generation of entangled photons from single molecule emissions that can be used for quantum information processes.

David Broun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University.

Sarah Burke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. She obtained her PhD from the University of McGill in 2009 and joined UBC in 2010. The principal aim of her research is to build an understanding of important electronic and optoelectronic processes in a wide range of materials from the atomic scale up. In particular, the role of interfaces in organic and nanoscale materials is often of crucial importance for applications oriented processes, yet is frequently not fully understood. Scanning probe microscopy offers the ability to investigate such interfaces at the atomic level. Dr. Burke’s research makes use of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques including atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) and at low temperatures (~4K). This clean, low-temperature environment allows the characterization of well defined systems, with sufficiently high energy resolution for most organic and nanoscale systems of interest, and with the level of stability required to achieve measurements on individual nanostructures.

The most ambitious application for silicon photonics – Chrostowski’s expertise – is in quantum computing.  Silicon­ photonic approaches offer the potential for scaling to millions of qubits owing to the small device size and wafer­-scale manufacturing.  Chrostowski’s research is focused on developing the ingredients necessary to build a scalable fault-­tolerant QC, including designing novel nano­photonic components for quantum information processing (lasers, single photon sources and detectors, spin qubit to photon coupling using resonators, optical switches, optical interconnects and low-loss coupling to the outside world), developing novel fabrication techniques, and building experimental apparatus for experimenting with quantum photonic circuits at cryogenic temperatures. Chrostowski was the Program Director of the NSERC CREATE Silicon Electronic-Photonic Integrated Circuits (Si-EPIC) research training program, which has expanded into a fabrication consortium, SiEPICfab (www.siepic.ubc.ca), and is the Program Director of the NSERC CREATE Quantum Computing program.  He is a collaborator on the Canada Fund for Innovation (CFI) / BCKDF project, ‘The Silicon Quantum Leap: Tools for Building a Universal Quantum Computer’, and his NSERC Discovery Grant is “Silicon Photonics for Quantum Computing”.

Prototype “noisy” quantum computers based on several different technologies are now accessible over the cloud. However, the level of noise is often 10-100 times higher than the error correction threshold, hindering demonstrations of quantum advantage over conventional computers. The de Sousa research group is addressing this problem in both the hardware and software fronts. In hardware, the group is developing theory to elucidate the origin of noise and decoherence in the materials and devices used to build quantum computers. These theories are being compared to experiments at universities and companies around the world. In software, the research group is developing algorithms to benchmark and mitigate noise, and is using these findings to  improve the output of quantum algorithms in cloud-based devices.

Olivia di Matteo obtained her PhD at the University of Waterloo and Institute for Quantum Computing in 2019 in Physics (Quantum Information). Following her PhD, she worked as a Quantum Information Science Associate at TRIUMF. Olivia then became a Quantum Computing Educator and Researcher at the Toronto-based startup Xanadu. Currently Olivia is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UBC. She is passionate about teaching quantum computing, and developing open-source quantum software. Her research interests include quantum circuits and compilation, quantum tomography, quantum machine learning, and quantum algorithms.

Jens Dilling is the Associate Director of Physical Sciences at the TRIUMF research center, and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at UBC. He obtained his undergraduate and graduate degree at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in atomic and nuclear physics. He used quantum control and manipulation techniques to carry out precision experiments, for which he received the CAP Vogt Medal, the APS Pipkin Award, and the Rutherford Medal of the Royal Society of Canada. The same or similar techniques are now applied to ion-trap based quantum computers, which offer excellent promise for ‘good qubits, scalability, and novel algorithm applications. 

Nikitas Dimopoulos received a B.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Athens and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1975, 1976 and 1980 respectively. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria (U.Vic.) in 1988 where he is currently Professor and Lansdowne Chair in Computer Engineering. He served as the Chair of the Department (1998- 2003, 2005-2008) and was Visiting Professor at the Computer Engineering Laboratory, Delft University of Technology (2001).

Previous to his appointment at UVic, he was Assistant and then Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Concordia University (1980- 1987) and member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (1986-1987). He has served as external evaluator for several Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments in Canada and internationally, on National and International adjudication panels (BCSC, CFI, NSERC Centers of Excellence, Graduate Programs – Greek Ministry of Education) and has been Accreditation Program Visitor for the CEAB.

His fields of interest are in Computer Architecture, Neural Networks and Quantum Computing. His research has been funded by NSERC, the Canadian Cable Labs Fund, ASI, CFI and CMC. He has over 200 publications including edited volumes, refereed journal and conference papers and technical reports. He and his students received a best paper award at the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering Professor Dimopoulos is a Professional Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists in British Columbia, a Life Senior Member of the IEEE and Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada.

Steve Dodge is an Associate Professor of Physics at Simon Fraser University who specializes in using femtosecond pulses of light to understand materials both in and out of equilibrium. His research focuses on quantum materials, including superconductors, magnetic materials, and topological electronic materials. He is an expert in a wide range of optical measurement techniques, including time-domain terahertz spectroscopy, pump-probe spectroscopy, coherent nonlinear optical spectroscopy, and polarization-sensitive measurements. He has been a Sloan Fellow, a Cottrell Scholar, and a member of the CIFAR Programs in Superconductivity, Quantum Matter, and Quantum Materials.

Joshua Folk obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 2003, and leads the Quantum Devices group here at UBC.  His group measures quantum phenomena in electronic circuits at ultra-low temperatures,  often in novel material systems.  Although these measurements are performed under the experimental conditions where existing qubit platforms, such as those based on spin or superconducting circuits, are often operated, his group focuses on the creation and identification of new exotic quasiparticles that may serve as a platform for future qubit technologies.

Michael Friedlander is a IBM professor of computational mathematics at the University of British Columbia since 2014. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2002. His research interests include Optimization, Convex Optimization, Mathematical Programming, and Computational Mathematics.

Erol Girt is a Professor in the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University.

Bhushan Gopaluni is a professor in the department of chemical and biological engineering and an Associate Dean for Education and Professional Development in the faculty of Applied Science at the University of British Columbia. He is also an associate faculty in the Institute of Applied Mathematics, the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems, Pulp and Paper Center and the Clean Energy Research Center. He was the Elizabeth and Leslie Gould Teaching Professor from 2014 to 2017. He is currently an associate editor for Journal of Process Control, The Journal of Franklin Institute and Results in Control and Optimization.

Bhushan received a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 2003 and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1997 both in the field of chemical engineering. From 2003 to 2005 he worked as an engineering consultant at Matrikon Inc. (now Honeywell Process Solutions) during which he had designed and commissioned multivariable controllers in British Columbia’s pulp and paper industry, and had implemented numerous controller performance monitoring projects in the Oil & Gas and other chemical industries. He is the recipient of the Killam Teaching Prize and the Dean’s service medal from the University of British Columbia and D.G. Fisher Award in Process Control from Canadian Society for Chemical Engineers.

Reuven Gordon is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria. He has received a Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance Award (2001), an Accelerate BC Industry Impact Award (2007), an AGAUR Visiting Professor Fellowship (2009), the Canada Research Chair in Nanoplasmonics (2009-2019), the Craigdarroch Silver Medal for Research Excellence (2011), a Fulbright Fellowship (2016), an NSERC Discovery Accelerator (2017), the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Award (2017) and an JSPS Invitational Fellowship (2020). He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the Society for Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), and the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Gordon has authored and co-authored over 170 journal papers (including 13 invited contributions). He is co-inventor for five patents and two patent applications. Dr. Gordon is a Professional Engineer of BC. Dr. Gordon has been recognized as an “Outstanding Referee” by the American Physical Society. He has also served as conference chair for several conferences, including SPIE NanoScience + Engineering and NFO16. Dr. Gordon is an Associate Editor for Optics Express and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Advanced Optical Materials. Dr. Gordon’s group researches single photon sources for quantum information technologies, as well as quantum plasmonics.

Dr Paul C Haljan is an Associate Professor of Physics at Simon Fraser University with expertise in trapped-ion quantum technologies. Before joining SFU in 2005, Paul performed his doctoral work on quantum vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates at the University of Colorado at Boulder and JILA and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he worked on quantum gate implementations in trapped-ion hardware and early algorithm demonstrations. At SFU, the Haljan research group is focused on experiments with trapped ions, quantum simulations and quantum state manipulation, and technology development for trapped-ion quantum computing. They are developing the capabilities to make a precision probe of a structural phase transition in trapped ions for both fundamental interest and potential sensor applications. They have measured spontaneous nucleation of topological defects following a quench of the transition and probed the structural transition in the quantum regime. They have demonstrated new laser cooling techniques for trapped ion strings and are developing ultra-stable trap potentials for quantum technology applications.

Igor Herbut is a Professor of theoretical physics at Simon Fraser University. He studied physics in Belgrade and Baltimore, and received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1995. He has held visiting appointments at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Max Planck Institute, and University of Tokyo.  He is interested in general quantum many-body problem, and in particular in the effects of electron-electron interactions in metals and superconductors. His research resulted in more than 130  publications and a monograph on the theory of phase transitions for Cambridge University Press. Herbut became a fellow of the American Physical Society and received the Marko Jaric Award for his prediction of the electronic ground state of graphene in the magnetic field and the elucidation of the metal-insulator transition in the Hubbard model on honeycomb lattice. He is also keenly interested in physics education and has taught quantum mechanics at all levels of undergraduate and graduate school.

Nicolas Jaeger received his B.Sc. degree from the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, in 1981, and his M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC, in 1986 and 1989, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. Since 1989 he has been a faculty member in UBC’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he is now a Professor in the area of Integrated Optics and Photonics. Currently, his research focuses on the design and application of integrated optic components for silicon-on-insulator platforms. Such silicon-photonic platforms are of current interest for the implementation of quantum-optic circuits and systems, such as those for quantum computing and quantum communications.

For his research, Professor Jaeger has received of the Canadian Institute of Energy’s “Research and Development” Award, the BC Advanced Systems Institute’s “Technology Partnership” Award, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Conference Board of Canada’s “Synergy” Award, the British Columbia Technology Industries Association’s “Excellence in Technical Innovation” Award, and the Canadian Association of Physicists and the National Optics Institute of Canada’s Medal for “Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics”  and, for his teaching/mentoring, Professor Jaeger has received the UBC Faculty of Applied Science’s “Killam Teaching Prize” and the UBC Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies’ “Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring.”

Tobias Junginger is a faculty accelerator physicist at the University of Victoria. He holds a joint appointment with TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre. His main research interest is in superconducting radiofrequency cavities. These can reach quality factors exceeding 10e10 at GHz frequencies making them interesting for quantum applications requiring long photon lifetimes.

Malcolm Kennett is an Associate Professor of Physics at Simon Fraser University (SFU).  He obtained his Ph.D at Princeton in 2002 and joined the faculty at SFU in 2005 after a postdoctoral position in the Theory of Condensed Matter group at Cambridge University.    His research is in the areas of novel quantum materials and trapped ultra-cold atoms. A particular focus in his research is the out of equilibrium dynamics of interacting many-body quantum systems, with application to systems that may be used for quantum simulations or quantum computing.

Roman Krems is Professor of theoretical chemistry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His current research interests include applications of machine learning for solving complex quantum problems, the development of quantum-inspired machine learning algorithms, and quantum machine learning. He is particularly interested in applications of Bayesian machine learning for inverse quantum problems, accelerating and improving the accuracy of quantum scattering calculations, and the development of machine learning methods for accurate extrapolation of solutions of complex physical equations. His group works on applications in quantum chemistry, quantum dynamics, quantum computing and quantum scattering theory. He graduated from Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia, in 1999, and obtained his PhD in physical chemistry from Göteborg University in Göteborg, Sweden, in 2002. He was a SAO predoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 2001–2002 and a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard physics department and the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms in 2003–2005. He is fellow of the American Physical Society and member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

Kero is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University. Before joining SFU in 2020, Kero got his PhD at the University of Toronto, and worked as a postdoc fellow at Ulm University, Max Planck Institute, and University of Chicago. Kero is a theorist working on the interplay of quantum physics and quantum information, with the focus on bosonic quantum systems, i.e. systems that behave as harmonic oscillators. His current interests include studying the properties of engineered quantum systems (e.g. optomechanics, microwave in superconducting resonator, trapped ions, photon in waveguide), and analyzing the practical performance of various technologies (e.g. sensing, communication, computation, simulation).

Mieszko Lis is an Assistant Professor at UBC. His research interests include multicore architecture, fine-grained parallelism and compilation techniques, high-level hardware design languages and methodologies, and the applications of computing techniques to the natural sciences. He is committed to raising the level of abstraction across the computing landscape — an interest he has also explored as co-designer of the high-level hardware design language Bluespec and developer of a high-level language for computational immunology studies. Before joining UBC, Mieszko received his SB, MEng, and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he focused on massive-scale multicore processors and various architectural techniques required to build them.

Andrew MacRae is an adjunct Assistant Professor and Senior Lab Instructor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria. He obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Calgary, studying the production of quantum optical states in atomic media. Following this, he studied Bose Einstein Condensates as a postdoc in the group of Dan M Stamper-Kurn at the University of California, Berkeley. He then spent a year as a software engineer making control algorithms for ultra-precise machining before joining UVic in 2016.

His present research direction is the mapping of quantum information into and out of atomic media, using nonlinear optical processes. The primary aim of this research is to create a reliable interface between qubits held in collective spin ensembles, and optical “flying” qubits that can be transported via optical fibers.

Kirk W. Madison obtained his PhD in the group of Mark Raizen at the University of Texas at Austin in 1998 and was a postdoc in the group of Jean Dalibard at the École normale supérieure in Paris until 2001.  Madison is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and leads the Quantum Degenerate Gases laboratory (a part of the UBC Center for Research on Ultra-cold Systems, CRUCS).  Madison’s current research is on the experimental realization of quantum sensors and quantum gases made from laser-cooled atoms and molecules.  Because of their extreme controllability and purity, quantum gases are an ideal “sandbox” quantum simulator for the creation and study of certain quantum materials.  Madison’s interests include applying these special purpose quantum simulators to investigate fundamental questions of many body quantum mechanics relevant to quantum materials and quantum computing.

Jeffrey McGuirk earned his Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford University. For his dissertation, he used ultra-cold atoms in a matter-wave interferometer to make precision measurements of gravity. He then was a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at JILA, at the University of Colorado and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he performed precision measurements of interactions between cold atoms and also measured short-range forces between cold atoms and room-temperature bulk surfaces. McGuirk joined the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University in 2004. His current research interests include the dynamics of ultra-cold quantum gases, particularly those with spin. He studies collective behaviour driven by quantum symmetries that modifies diffusion and drives spin waves, domain formation, instabilities, and other nonlinear out-of-equilibrium behaviour.

Shahriar Mirabbasi received the BSc in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 1990, and the MASc and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto in 1997 and 2002, respectively. Since August 2002, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UBC where he is currently a Professor. Dr. Mirabbasi and his team’s research interests include analog, mixed-signal, and RF integrated circuit and system design for wireless and wireline data communication, data converter, sensor interface, and biomedical applications.

Hausi Müller is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Victoria. He was Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Engineering (2009-2019).  He is Co-Chair IEEE Future Directions Quantum Initiative and serves on the IEEE Conferences Committee (2019-2021). He is Founder and General Chair of IEEE Quantum Week, the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing & Engineering (QCE20 & QCE21). He was Vice President of IEEE Computer Society (CS) Technical and Conferences Activities (T&C) Board (2016–2018), Chair CS Technical Council on Software Engineering (2011-2015). He teaches a graduate & 4th year course on quantum algorithms and software engineering. With his research group, he collaborates extensively with industry as an international expert in software engineering, software evolution, quantum computing, hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, adaptive systems, IoT, and intelligent cyber-physical systems. He is co-investigator of an IBM CAS Project on Quantum Problem Solving and Algorithm Design. He is a principal investigator for two NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) team grants on Quantum Computing and Dependable Internet-of-Things Applications (DITA).

Prashant Nair is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the B.Eng degrees in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Prior to joining UBC as faculty member, Prashant was a Postdoctoral Researcher (Research Scientist) at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York. Prashant’s interests are in the areas of reliability, security, and performance-power efficient memory systems. Currently, he is interested in Recommender System Optimization, Deep Neural Network Optimization, Memory Security, and efficient Quantum Simulators. His work frequently appears in several top-tier conferences like ISCA, MICRO, HPCA, and ASPLOS. Prashant has served as a primary reviewer for several major conferences in computer architecture, including ISCA,  ASPLOS-2016,  IEEE CAL, ACM-TACO, ACM-TC, and SBAC-PAD.

Irina Paci is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Victoria (UVic).  She obtained her Ph.D at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 2003 and joined the faculty at UVic in 2007 after a postdoctoral position with the Theoretical Chemistry Group at Northwestern University.  Her research interests lie in the development of computational chemistry approaches for modelling nanostructured materials and related systems. These approaches usually involve a combination of statistical and quantum chemical methods, in order to capture the quantum behaviour of nanoscale features when modelling large-scale materials. In particular, her group’s research has focused on nanostructure self-assembly, catalytic processes in atomic layer deposition, and the optical and dielectric properties of optoelectronic materials. Recently, her group has been interested in methods interfacing quantum chemistry on quantum computers and classical computers and their applications in accelerating materials discovery.

Lecturer in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University and currently involved in developing courses in quantum algorithms and quantum computational complexity.  He received his PhD in theoretical astrophysics and applied mathematics from The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at The University of Arizona and his MSc from UBC in high energy astrophysics.  His research involves computational magnetohydrodynamics, mathematical inverse theory and spectral methods in fluid dynamics.  He has only recently become active in quantum computing with research centered on quantum fault-tolerance.

Andrew Potter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute at the University of British Columbia. His research leverages theoretical tools from quantum information to address fundamental scientific questions such as what are the possible phases of matter? and, when do (or more interestingly don’t!) quantum systems reach thermal equilibrium? He also works on the theory and modelling of quantum computing- and quantum simulation- hardware in solid-state devices and AMO systems, and has recently focused on developing near-term quantum algorithms for material simulation based on quantum tensor network methods. Andrew obtained his PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics from MIT, and was a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley. Before joining UBC, Andrew was an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, and a principal physicist in the theory and algorithms group at Honeywell | Quantum Solutions. He is a Sloan Research Fellow, and has received a US National Science Foundation early career award, the IUPAP 2021 Young Scientist award.

Robert Raussendorf obtained his PhD from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany in 2003. He invented, jointly with Hans Briegel, the one way quantum computer, a scheme of measurement based quantum computation. In general, Raussendorf’s work focuses on the theory of quantum computation, such as quantum computer architecture, the relation of quantum computation to foundations of quantum mechanics such as quantum contextuality, and the relation of quantum computation to condensed matter physics, e.g., symmetry-protected topological order. He is Associate Professor at UBC, where he researches and teaches since 2008.

Joe Salfi is an experimental quantum physicist and electrical engineer and leads the Quantum Science and Technology Laboratory at UBC. His main research interests is the physical implementation of quantum information systems, and his research expertise is in spin physics and quantum devices. He is distinguished in his research field for experimentally demonstrating quantum bits with strong intrinsic spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which is advantageous for building scalable quantum information technologies, and can also possess ultra-long coherence times. He also performed the first proof-of-principal experimental demonstration of analog quantum simulation of the Fermi-Hubbard model with solid state devices, an important model in condensed matter physics. His research is industrially relevant because it is based on silicon materials that underpin classical computer technologies. He is affiliated with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute at UBC.

Sudip Shekhar received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 2003 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington, in 2005 and 2008, respectively. From 2008 to 2013, he worked as a Research Scientist in the Circuits Research Laboratory at Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon. He joined the department of ECE at University of British Columbia as an Assistant Professor in 2013. His research interests include circuits for high-speed I/O interfaces, Silicon Photonics, RF transceivers and sensor interfaces.

Dr Stephanie Simmons is an Assistant Professor, Canada Research Chair, and CIFAR Fellow, based out of the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and is the Founder and Chief Quantum Officer of Photonic Inc. Her work on silicon quantum technologies was awarded a Physics World Top Ten Breakthrough of the Year of 2013 and again in 2015, and she is one of only 5 individuals to have ever won this award twice. She was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2020, and her work has been covered by the New York Times, CBC, BBC, Scientific American, the New Scientist, and many others.

Jeff Sonier is a Professor in the Department of Physics at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Philip Stamp received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Sussex. Before his current period at the University of British Columbia, which began in 2002, he was joint director of the Spinoza Institute in Utrecht. He is currently a professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy, and director of the Pacific Institute for Theoretical Physics, both at UBC; he also holds a visiting position in Theoretical Astrophysics at Caltech.  His current research interests include quantum magnetism, the physics of decoherence, and the theory of quantum information processing, as well as theoretical quantum gravity. In recent years his work has been applied to the dynamics of qubits in flux superconductors, to spins in insulating, semiconducting, and hybrid quantum optical/solid-state systems, and to quantum Ising systems. The company “D-Wave Systems”, the first company in the world to market and sell quantum computers, was founded in Stamp’s research group.

Ulrike Stege is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Victoria. She received a diploma in Mathematics from Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany, and a doctorate from ETH Zürich, Switzerland.  She was Computer Science Department Chair at the University of Victoria from 2014-2018.  She is a co-founder and co-director of HighTechU, an innovative learning community for high-school-aged youth with focus on building professional skills, and exploring career pathways related to technology; part of HighTechU’s portfolio is the designing and offering of youth workshops in quantum computing.  She teaches a graduate & 4th year course on quantum algorithms and software engineering. With her graduate students she works in the areas of algorithm development with focus on parameterized complexity, quantum computing with focus on hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, bioinformatics and cognitive psychology. She is a principal investigator of an IBM CAS Project on Quantum Problem Solving and Algorithm Design. Ulrike was Co-Chair of the Technical Paper Track on Quantum Workforce & Society, Posters Chair at IEEE Quantum Week 2021, Co-Chair of Pathways to Quantum: An introductory workshop on quantum computing for youth. She was also Co-Chair of CASCON 2020 Workshop on Quantum Computing: Challenges and Opportunities.

Mike Thewalt is a Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at Simon Fraser University who continues to do research into the optical properties of impurities and defects in semiconductors, with a focus on how these might be used as qubits and spin/photon interfaces.  The discovery and elucidation of the remarkable optical properties of highly enriched silicon-28 by his group in the early 2000’s led to a worldwide race to harness the properties of these systems for quantum applications.  His research has resulted in over 300 publications with nearly 12,000 citations, as well as 5 patents. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), the American Physical Society (APS) and the Institute of Physics (IoP) of the UK.  He has served in many positions with the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), including as President, and on the Semiconductor Commission (C8) of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) for two three-year terms as member and one term each as Secretary and Chair.  He has held an NSERC Industrial Research Chair, a Sloan Fellowship, two NSERC Research Accelerator supplements and a Killam Research Fellowship.  His awards include the Gold Medal of the BC Science Council, the Rutherford Memorial Medal of the RSC, the Medal of Achievement and the Brockhouse Medal of the CAP, and the SFU Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision.

Tom Tiedje is a Professor (Emeritus) of Electrical and Computer Engineering (UVic and UBC) and Physics and Astronomy (UBC). His research is in the area of semiconductor materials and devices particularly thin film growth, surface characterization and photovoltaic devices. Recently he has become a student of quantum computing. He is a recipient of the North American Molecular Beam Epitaxy Conference Innovator Award. He has a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Physics from UBC. After graduating he worked on solar photovoltaics at Exxon Research and Engineering Co before rejoining UBC and then UVic. He has served in a variety of administrative roles including group leader, founding director of AMPEL, department head and dean. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

After obtaining a MEng in 1986 at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, Frank van Veggel obtained his Ph.D. summa cum laude at the same university in 1990. He then joined the photonics research group of the Dutch chemical company Akzo (now Akzo Nobel). In 1992 he returned to the University of Twente as assistant professor. He pioneered the sensitized near-infrared luminescence of Ln3+ polydentate complexes. Two paradigm-shifting articles were published in 2002 on colloidally stable Ln3+ based nanoparticles with luminescence in the near-infrared. This established him as the world’s expert in this field. In 2002 he accepted a Tier II Canada Research Chair at the University of Victoria, renewed in 2007, where he has continued to expand his research on nanoparticles, ranging from single-photon sources, Ln3+-doped, quantum dots, to superparamagnetic nanoparticles, and his reputation as a top materials chemistry researcher.

Konrad Walus received a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Windsor in 2001, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, in 2005. He has been at The University of British Columbia since 2005 and is presently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Walus’ research falls in the broader area of Microsystems and Nanotechnology and includes contributions to the development of CAD tools for computational nanotechnology using atomic silicon quantum dots, development of embedding algorithms for exploiting the emulation potential of D-Wave’s quantum annealer as a platform for field coupled computing using quantum dots, and the development of computational circuits and architectures based on quantum dots. Prof. Walus has an extensive record of interdisciplinary contributions to other areas including the field of functional printing technology and 3D bioprinting. He co-founded one of Canada’s most recognized early stage biotechnology companies, Aspect Biosystems Ltd (2019 BCs Growth Stage Company of the Year, 2018 BIOTECanada Emerging Company of the Year, and 2016 BC’s Most Promising Company). In addition to research in 3D bioprinting, he has contributed to advancing state-of-the-art in printable electronics through the development of novel printing technology, printing processes, and printed electronic sensors.

Steve Wilton is Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC. Dr. Wilton’s research is in the broad areas of Computer Architecture and VLSI design. Dr. Wilton’s research has traditionally been in the area of architectures of next-generation Field-Programmable Gate Arrays and Computer-Aided Design algorithms that map circuits to these devices. The goal of much of Dr. Wilton’s research is to improve FPGAs by enhancing both their internal structure (architecture) as well as the associated Computer-Aided Design algorithms. He has recently been working on structure-aware embedding algorithms for Quantum Annealers, a problem that has similarities to the placement and routing problem for FPGAs.  He was a co-founder of Veridae Systems which was acquired by Tektronix, and has consulted for Intel, Cypress Semiconductor, and Tektronix.

Jeff Young received his B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from UBC in 1979, and his PhD degree in Physics from the University of Toronto in 1983.  He spent 9 years at the National Research Council in Ottawa, first in the Division of Physics, and then in the Institute of Microstructural Sciences, as a Research Officer and later as Group Leader.  In 1992 he returned to UBC in the Department of Physics, now the Department of Physics and Astronomy.  He has served as the Director of the Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Laboratory from 2012-2017, as the Director of the Engineering Physics Program from 1998-2003, and the Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 2004-2008.  He has also served on the UBC senate, numerous NSERC committees, and as an advisor to NRC, TRIUMF and other organizations.  He has entrepreneurial experience in Vancouver, and is a Professional Engineer. His research interests mainly pertain to linear and nonlinear electrodynamics and the optical properties of materials.  For the past decade the focus has been on silicon-based integrated photonic circuits and the hybrid integration of quantum emitters and single photon detectors for quantum information processing.