Convergence QL: Workshop Series: Cross- Sector Connections in Quantum Leap

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Non-Technical Abstract: Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) has made remarkable progress, heralding promise for revolutionary new technologies in quantum sensing, communication, computation and cryptography. Recent advances bring the promise of QISE into marketable technologies with the potential for a sustained and profound societal impact. A successful technology leap requires investment in a trained workforce adept in the basic quantum sciences as well as proficient in the necessary engineering fields, informed about the broader issues of developing quantum science into marketable quantum devices. This is an optimal time to explore new, more effective ways of coupling academic and industrial research programs, promoting convergence of disciplines, resources and sectors in this endeavor. This project addresses these issues by developing a series of workshops constituting the QISE Network (QISE-NET): a community of tightly integrated university-industry partners, focused on leading-edge QISE projects. These associates comprise three-person teams of university faculty, industrial researchers, and a graduate student serving as the pivotal component of the group. QISE-NET serves as a model for a new approach to graduate student education as well as truly collaborative university-industry interactions, including the selection of projects, yearly workshops, and student mentoring activities. The program creates new employment opportunities for students along with company positions and start-up ventures. This Project promotes Convergence by offering a way to educate, train and nurture a cohort of industry-academia partnerships between the convergent disciplines of Materials Science Theory, Materials Science Experiment, Device Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, and Industrial Research. Technical Abstract: This activity helps to create a distinctive and critically-needed intellectual infrastructure for students studying the convergent QISE disciplines. By linking the talents, resources and approaches of both the academic and industrial environment, QISE-NET is able to create and leverage an intellectually broad community of researchers to generate the new science, engineering and marketable QISE technologies of the future. By demonstrating how students' academic work can be enabled and broadened through access to the resources, systems and team-based approaches available in industrial research laboratories, QISE-NET establishes new models of university-industry collaboration, while providing a more cogent program for graduate student education in QISE. Proposals are submitted through a program website, and announced using broad electronic distribution through academic and professional society organizations, as well as through corporate network distribution. They are evaluated by an external advisory board consisting of academic and industrial researchers spanning a broad range of science and technology. Yearly workshops form the principal means of communications among the various projects and serve to knit the network. Participants share research results, and understand the different best practices that produce effective interactions. An education specialist from a NSF center conducts independent, anonymous assessments from the participants, and provides a mechanism to improve the effectiveness of both the program and workshops. The QISE-NET will generate outstanding, leading-edge scientific results with applicability to new, marketable technologies, and serve to strengthen collaborations between academia and industry. This Project promotes Convergence by offering a way to educate, train and nurture a cohort of industry-academia partnerships between the convergent disciplines of Materials Science Theory, Materials Science Experiment, Device Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, and Industrial Research.