Vinod M. Menon
How long have you been conducting research in Quantum Science?
It has been almost 20 years since I started an independent research group. Prior to that I carried out my doctoral work and post-doctoral work in related topics. So in some sense, it has now been almost 27 years working on quantum related experimental aspects.
What are the major thrusts of your research in Quantum Science at the moment? Where do you envision the possible applications of your research long term?
Major thrusts include (i) development of programmable quantum matter using light-matter hybrid quasiparticles (a.k.a. polaritons) (ii) engineering quantum materials using optical resonators, and (iii) realizing artificial electromagnetic environments to control light-matter interaction.
Possible application areas include computing using light (both classical and quantum), developing new classes of materials and their responses using light and quantum transduction (where information is transferred seamlessly between different frequencies).
What are the exciting opportunities that will be emerging in Quantum Computing/Quantum Science and how can undergraduate students prepare for them?
This is a great time to be a physics major since the job opportunities in quantum computing/information processing in industry are going through tremendous growth. It is not just the companies that make quantum devices, but also key enabling technologies such as cryostats, optical components, etc that are seeing a big impact.
Undergraduate students at CCNY are in a unique position. They can take one of the few courses offered in NYC on this topic which also has a lab component. This course gives a very good introduction to the topic as well as gets them trained on both software and hardware (optics) aspects. What is equally important is that this course is open to students from both science and engineering and only requires a background in linear algebra. Dr. Cottrell who teaches this course has developed a curriculum that is accessible to students from different departments. The students can also engage in research with faculty at CCNY physics as well as the ASRC Photonics initiative (which is on the CCNY campus) working in the areas of quantum materials and quantum information processing.
How is City College positioned to participate in this field of Quantum Computing/Science?
CCNY possibly offered one of the world’s first undergraduate quantum computing course – going back to Spring 1996. This was just two years after the famous Shor’s algorithm was published. While this course took a pause, we re-introduced this course in Spring 2020 taught by Dr. Cottrell and in Fall 2024, introduced a laboratory component for the course through funding from NSF and Sandbox AQ– a first of its kind at the undergraduate level.
On the research side, there are several research groups involved in the experimental and theoretical aspects. Current faculty working in these areas and recipients of the grants include: (theory) Professor Pouyan Ghaemi who works on developing quantum algorithms, and Professor Sriram Ganeshan who works on quantum hydrodynamics; and (Experiments): Professor Lia Krusin who works on quantum materials, Professor Carlos Meriles who works on quantum metrology, Professor Maria Tamargo who does growth of quantum materials and Professor Vinod Menon working on quantum photonics. All the experimental groups are located at the Center for Discovery and Innovation. The PIs listed here have received several grants in recent times on topics ranging from quantum photonics to quantum materials from agencies such as NSF, DOD, DOE (energy), Moore Foundation, Keck Foundation to name a few.
Vinod M. Menon, Professor of Physics
https://lanmp.org/
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Seth Cottrell
How long have you been conducting research in Quantum Science?
About ten years. Unfortunately, because this field is so new, there’s been very life opportunities to explore it. Like most people in this field, I started from a related field (math) and was drawn in by the appeal of quantum science. It’s fascinating, deeply philosophical, extremely applicable, and not for nothing: it’s fun. In grad school I gathered signatures to convince the physics department to teach a class on quantum information that was revelatory. But no one in my school studied QIST, so I found an outside advisor to guide my research.
What are the major thrusts of your research in Quantum Science at the moment? Where do you envision the possible applications of your research long term?
Although I work for the physics department, I’m a mathematician by training, so my research is mostly theoretical. I spent some time looking at quantum graph theory to explore how to extend the kind of searches that quantum computers can do, and I helped find some interesting ways to understand the relationships between measurement, coherence, and entanglement. That research helps frame the outer limits of what’s possible with quantum computers and sensors and tells us what we can expect and hope for in the future.
What are the exciting opportunities that will be emerging in Quantum Computing/Quantum Science and how can undergraduate students prepare for them?
Molecules have the “same kind of complexity” that quantum computers have, and that makes molecular simulation impossible for regular computers (no matter how big) and easy for quantum computers. We can reasonably expect a boom in new chemistry, medicine, biology, and materials. Some of the new mathematical possibilities opened up by quantum computers render the most common form of encryption impossible, and at the same time quantum communication provide new ways to safeguard information, so security agencies across the world are scrambling to catch up.
Beyond the few use cases we know of today, it’s impossible to predict what will come out of the Second Quantum Revolution (the period of rapid advancements happening now). No one could have guessed how electricity or computers would change the course of history, and we’re in a similar position now. Once we have “garage quantum computers” that hobbyists can play around with I expect there to be an explosion of novel new uses, but I can’t begin to guess what those will be!
How is City College positioned to participate in this field of Quantum Computing/Science?
I teach Intro to Quantum Computation, an undergraduate class aimed at all hard science majors (not just physicists) because the explosion of new quantum technologies today draw on mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists. As part of that class, CCNY now has an undergraduate quantum teaching lab, where students can gain hands-on experience with a range of fundamental quantum phenomena.
There are several professors doing active quantum research with both graduate and undergraduate students. Professors Menon and Meriles work with students in their labs in the Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI), Professor Saeed has developed a quantum hardware lab in the engineering department, and there is a range of research happening in the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC). We are currently creating a more comprehensive quantum education track to combine all these resources for our students.
Seth Cottrell teaches quantum computation at the City College of New York and is the designer and PI for their new undergraduate quantum lab.
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Samah Saeed
How long have you been conducting research in Quantum Science?
I started working on reversible computing, which forms the foundational concept for designing quantum circuits and algorithms, in 2017. After a year, I transitioned to working on quantum computing.
What are the major thrusts of your research in Quantum Science at the moment? Where do you envision the possible applications of your research long term?
My research in Quantum Science focuses on two main areas: the quantum computing software stack and the quantum system security. I see these efforts enabling secure, reliable, and efficient quantum computing for critical applications including cryptanalysis, computational chemistry, and artificial intelligence.
What are the exciting opportunities that will be emerging in Quantum Computing/Quantum Science and how can undergraduate students prepare for them?
Quantum computing is rapidly advancing, with opportunities in areas like quantum chemistry and the integration of artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and quantum processors. Undergraduate students can prepare by strengthening their foundation in physics, mathematics, and computer science, and gaining hands-on experience with quantum programming through open-source toolkits.
How is City College positioned to participate in this field of Quantum Computing/Science?
CCNY researchers are engaged in diverse areas of Quantum Information Science and Engineering, spanning from software to hardware. While my group focuses on the software layers of quantum systems, other researchers at CCNY are advancing exciting work in quantum simulation, quantum technology, sensing, and imaging.
Samah Saeed, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Grove School of Engineering
https://sers.ccny.cuny.edu/