QSE Center holds first Scientific Exchange Meeting

“There are so many excellent researchers in different areas of Quantum at EPFL, working in quantum enabling technologies, quantum sensing, computing, and quantum algorithms,” says Philippe Caroff, Executive Director of the QSE Center. “Therefore it is important for us to provide a friendly and informal forum for them to meet and share their research and ideas with one another.”

This first meeting began with a presentation about the QSE Center from Caroff, Academic Director Vincenzo Savona, and Communications Manager Stephanie Parker. Then two QSE researchers, Anna Foncuberta i Morral and Giuseppe Carleo, each gave a short scientific presentation about their research, in order for the other attendees to learn more about what kind of quantum work is taking place at EPFL.

Foncuberta i Morral, who heads the Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials and is also the Associate Vice President for Centers and Platforms, spoke about “(Nano)materials for applications in quantum”, and Carleo, PI of the Computational Quantum Science Lab, presented on “Variational learning in the age of machine learning and quantum computing”. Videos of both presentations will be available on the QSE Center’s website in the coming weeks. After the presentations, attendees enjoyed a catered lunch and drinks.

“I was happy to see that the audience had very diverse backgrounds, with people interested in quantum from physics to computer science,” says Carleo. “These meetings are very important to smooth out some of the language barriers that sometimes exist across different fields and can help foster new collaborations.”

This meeting was the first of what will become a regular series beginning in the fall. The goal of these meetings is to help bring together the quantum community at EPFL in order to foster collaborations and enable researchers to more effectively advocate for quantum research in Switzerland.