Instructors

David Awschalom is the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago, Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. Professor Awschalom works in the areas of semiconductor spintronics and quantum information engineering.

Professor Awschalom’s research involves understanding and controlling the spins of electrons, ions, and nuclei in semiconductors for fundamental studies of quantum systems, as well as potential applications in computing, sensing, and communication. He received his B.Sc. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his PhD in experimental physics from Cornell University. Professor Awschalom was a research staff member and manager of the Nonequilibrium Physics Department at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Prior to joining the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, he served as the Peter J. Clarke Professor and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, and Director of the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation.

Hannes Bernien is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He studies quantum many-body physics and quantum information processing, and seeks to develop new ways of engineering large, complex quantum systems.

Professor Bernien’s research combines techniques from quantum control and quantum optics with ultracold atoms and nanotechnology in order to develop new ways of engineering large, fully controlled quantum systems for quantum information processing, quantum simulation and quantum networks. He earned his MSc in physics from Hannover University in Germany and his PhD in physics from Technical University Delft, the Netherlands.

Nicholas Bronn is a research staff member at IBM, where he focuses on enabling Qiskit on different hardware platforms, hardware-focused quantum applications, and education of the quantum community at large. Bronn has been responsible for developing and integrating quantum hardware and deploying quantum systems over the cloud. Prior to his current position, Nick was a post-doctoral researcher at IBM, which he joined in 2013 after earning his PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from the University of Illinois, supported in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Aashish Clerk is a theoretical physicist and Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. Clerk’s research focuses on understanding complex phenomena in quantum systems that are both strongly driven and subject to dissipation.

Professor Clerk’s research has applications to various areas of quantum technology, including sensing, control communication and computing. His group’s work intersects the fields of condensed matter physics, quantum optics, and quantum information. He received his BSc from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Physics from Cornell University. Prior to joining the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, Professor Clerk served as Professor of Physics at McGill University.

Joseph Heremans is a Staff Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. Heremans' research focuses on engineering spin systems in diamond, silicon carbide, and other wide bandgap semiconductors for quantum information, nanoscale sensing, and quantum communication applications.

The spin qubit systems that Heremans researches, such as the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond and the divacancy complexes (VV) in silicon carbide (SiC), offer a wide variation of control techniques as well as sensitivity to local magnetic and electric fields, temperature, and strain. He received his BSE in Computer Engineering and BM in Music Theory from the University of Michigan and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Alex High is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He studies quantum and optical science and explores new physics and technologies that emerge when quantum systems are engineered at the nanoscale level.

Professor High’s lab explores new methods to craft interactions between photons and solid state systems. By doing so, the High lab seeks fundamentally modify materials, for instance by breaking time-reversal symmetry or inducing long range coherence, and create deterministic, coherent interactions between single photons and quantum states. He received his BA in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD in physics from the University of California, San Diego.

Liang Jiang is a Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He theoretically investigates quantum systems and explores various quantum applications, such as quantum sensing, quantum transduction, quantum communication, and quantum computation.

Professor Jiang’s research focuses on using quantum control and error correction to protect quantum information from decoherence to realize robust quantum information processing and he has worked on: modular quantum computation, global-scale quantum networks, room-temperature nano-magnetometer, sub-wavelength imaging, microwave-optical quantum transduction, and error-correction-assisted quantum sensing and simulation. Professor Jiang received his BS in physics from Caltech and his PhD in physics from Harvard. Prior to joining PME, he served as Associate Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale University.

Peter Maurer is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He studies the development of novel nanoscale quantum sensing and imaging techniques.

Professor Mauer’s research focuses on applying emerging quantum imaging and sensing modalities that enable the investigation of biological systems that are not accessible by conventional techniques. He received his MSc in physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and PhD in physics from Harvard University.

David Schuster is an Associate Professor of Physics, Molecular Engineering, and the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago. Schuster specializes in quantum information, with research efforts in quantum computing, hybrid quantum systems, and quantum simulation.

Professor Schuster’s research focuses on understanding and controlling the unique properties such as superposition and entanglement of quantum systems in a variety of platforms, including superconducting quantum circuits, hybrid quantum systems, and condensed matter systems. He received his ScB in mathematics-physics from Brown University, and his PhD in physics from Yale University.

Shuolong Yang is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He studies the quantum phenomena emerging at material interfaces, such as interfacial superconductivity and topological orders.

Professor Yang’s research utilizes molecular beam epitaxy to engineer quantum materials layer-by-layer and characterizes the electronic properties of these materials using equilibrium and non-equilibrium photoemission spectroscopies. He received his BS in physics and his PhD in applied physics from Stanford University.

Tian Zhong is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. His areas of research expertise are in quantum photonics, quantum information and networking, solid-state quantum technologies, and hybrid quantum systems.

Professor Zhong’s research focuses on developing enabling nanoscale photonic and solid-state (e.g. rare-earth-ion doped crystals) technologies for building quantum hardware to realize scalable quantum networks, hybrid quantum computing and sensing systems. Zhong received his Bachelor of Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, and his SM and PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences from MIT.