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Planning Committee Biographical Information
CHARLES M. MARCUS, Chair, is the Boeing Johnson Endowed Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Prior to that Marcus worked at the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), the University of Copenhagen as the director of the Center for Quantum Devices, a Center of Excellence of the Danish National Research Foundation; and served as the scientific director of the Microsoft Quantum Lab–Copenhagen. Marcus’s research interests focus on quantum mechanically coherent electronics, quantum bits, quantum chaos, and topology in condensed matter systems. Marcus’s long-term research goal is to build and explore large-scale interconnected quantum-coherent and topological systems with an eye toward applications in quantum information. Marcus is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a foreign member of the Danish Royal Academy of Science and Letters, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Marcus won the Industry Prize from the Danish Academy of Natural Sciences, and in 2020 was the first non-Dane to receive the H.C. Ørsted Gold Medal by the Society for the Dissemination of Natural Science awarded only 20 times since 1909, including to Niels Bohr in 1924. Marcus earned a PhD in physics from Harvard University. Marcus is serving on the National Academies’ Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee.
VEDIKA KHEMANI is a professor of physics at Stanford University. Khemani’s research interests are in quantum dynamics, many-body quantum entanglement, and emergent properties of out-of-equilibrium quantum matter represent a bur-
geoning research direction of interest to several subfields of physics including condensed matter, quantum information, quantum gravity, and quantum engineering. In the past 4 years, Khemani received the American Physical Society George E. Valley Jr. Prize, the Department of Energy Early Career Award, the Sloan Research Fellowship, and the Breakthrough New Horizons in Physics Prize. Khemani earned a PhD in physics from Princeton University.
NADYA MASON is the dean and the Robert Zimmer Professor of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago. Mason is a condensed matter physicist, specializing in experimental studies of quantum materials such as nanowires, 2D systems, and nanostructured superconductors. Before becoming dean of PME, Mason directed the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and served as the founding director of the Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Mason is committed to promoting science communication and increasing inclusivity in the physical sciences. Mason’s TED talk on “Scientific Curiosity” has more than 600,000 views. Mason is a member of the NAS and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Mason received the 2009 Denise Denton Emerging Leader Award, the 2012 American Physical Society (APS) Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, and the 2019 APS Bouchet Award. Mason earned a PhD in physics from Stanford University.
NICHOLAS A. PETERS is the section head for Quantum Information Science and Distinguished Research and Development Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Peters spent about a decade working at Telcordia Technologies/Applied Communications Sciences in the Broadband Optical Networking Department before joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2015. Peters’s research is focused on developing quantum optical approaches for improving networks, sensors, cybersecurity, and computers. Peters has developed quantum light sources including two-qubit entanglement, hyperentanglement, and squeezed light. He has also demonstrated the use of these quantum resources in various applications and protocols, including the coexistence of quantum and classical signals and quantum cybersecurity for energy delivery infrastructure in deployed fiber optic networks. Peters was awarded the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award, an R&D100 award, and recognition as an APS Outstanding Referee. Peters earned a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
ANA MARIA REY AYALA is currently a JILA and National Institute of Standards and Technology Fellow and a professor adjoint in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Rey Ayala previously worked at the Institute of Theoretical, Molecular and Optical Physics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a postdoctoral fellow. Rey Ayala’s research focuses on how to control
and manipulate ultra-cold atoms, molecules, and trapped ions for use as quantum simulators of solid-state materials and for quantum information and precision measurements. Rey Ayala’s recognition includes the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Thesis Prize (2005), the Great Minds in STEM - Most Promising Scientist Award (2013), a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2013), the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2013), the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of APS (2014), and the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists (2019). Rey Ayala is a fellow of APS and a member of the NAS. Rey Ayala earned a PhD in physics from the University of Maryland, College Park. Rey Ayala is a former member of the National Academies’ Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee.
PEDRAM ROUSHAN is a staff research scientist with Google and leads the experimental effort on noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) algorithms, focusing on simulating quantum phenomena on NISQ processors. With his team and their collaborators, Roushan has studied information scrambling in quantum circuits and phases of matter away from equilibrium (e.g., time crystals, measurement-induced entanglement phases, and quantum statistics of abelian and non-abelian excitations of the Kitaev toric code model). Roushan joined Google in 2014 team working with the team that performed the first claimed quantum supremacy demonstration in 2019 using Google’s Sycamore processor. Roushan also performed the first scanning tunneling microscopy on the surface of topological insulator while working toward his doctorate. Roushan earned his PhD in physics from Princeton University.
CHARLES TAHAN is a partner at Microsoft and is a visiting research professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Tahan works on building quantum computers at Microsoft and maintains a research group at the University of Maryland. Previously, Tahan led the National Quantum Coordination Office as the assistant director of quantum information science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. His technical impact includes significant contributions to spin and superconducting quantum computing, quantum information science, condensed matter physics, the creation of new programs from Quantum Characterization, Validation, and Verification to New and Emerging Qubits Science and Technology, and national quantum policy for the United States. Tahan has been recognized by the Researcher of the Year Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, election as a fellow of APS, and as an Office of the Director of National Intelligence Science and Technology Fellow. Tahan earned a PhD in physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
FATIMA TOOR is the Lowell G. Battershell Endowed Chair in Laser Engineering and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Iowa (UI). At UI, Toor’s research involves the development of innovative
quantum-engineered semiconductor optoelectronics. Toor has been involved with various technology startup companies, Precision Biosensors, Inc. (2023–present), Juggernaut Life Sciences, Inc. (2022–present), and Firefly Photonics, LLC (2018–2023) commercializing quantum-engineered technologies for applications in the health, environment, and energy industries. Toor is a senior member of Optica (formerly Optical Society of America) and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics professionals, and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society of Laser Medicine and Surgery. Toor was inducted into the Iowa Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors. Toor obtained a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton University.
