Three outstanding female students chosen for QSE INSPIRE awards
© 2025 EPFL
The INSPIRE Quantum Master's awards aim to attract and empower excellent female students who will conduct their master’s project in the research areas represented at the QSE Center.
The awardees – Carla Becker, Ekaterina Pankovets, and Qingxin Yang – will complete their master’s projects in the laboratories of Pasquale Scarlino, Vincenzo Savona, and Thomas Vidick respectively. Each will receive up to 10,000 CHF from the QSE Center to help with their studies and expenses. These awards are given as part of the QSE Center’s mission to increase the presence of excellent female students and researchers in the domain of quantum science and engineering, where they unfortunately still remain underrepresented.
Carla Becker
Carla Becker completed her bachelor’s in Physics at EPFL, but it was during her exchange program at TU Wien that she gained interest in quantum technology by writing her bachelor’s thesis in the atom-chip group of Jörg Schmiedmayer. When she returned to Lausanne for her Master’s in Physics, she joined Tobias Kippenberg’s group to work on optomechanics for two semester projects. In 2024-2025, she studied superconducting circuits for her internship and Master’s thesis in Pasquale Scarlino’s Hybrid Quantum Circuit Laboratory.
Her master’s thesis focuses on artificial giant atoms interacting with a coupled cavity array implemented as a superconducting metamaterial with the goal of studying multimode quantum electrodynamics effects.
Ekaterina Pankovets
Ekaterina Pankovets completed her bachelor’s degree in physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. During her undergraduate studies, she interned at the Deep Quantum Lab at Skoltech and at her home university, where she worked on variational quantum algorithms and measures of decoherence. In September 2023, she joined the Master’s program in Quantum Science and Engineering at EPFL. She initially worked in the group of Zoë Holmes, exploring the effect of noise on the loss landscapes of variational algorithms and the classical simulability of parameterized quantum circuits. Later, she joined the group of Vincenzo Savona, where she is currently conducting research on entanglement phase transitions in dissipative spin chains.
Her master’s thesis is a continuation of the work she has done in Savona’s Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of Nanosystems. The focus of her research is on addressing the gap between measurement-induced phase transitions—widely studied but not fully reflective of physical reality—and more realistic, dissipative systems. This research is particularly relevant for quantum computing, as understanding how quantum resources behave in open systems is key to assessing the feasibility of implementing algorithms on real hardware. After her master’s, she plans to pursue a PhD in Quantum Computing, working further into bridging the gap between quantum algorithms and practical implementations.
Qingxin Yang
Qingxin Yang is currently a master’s student in mathematics and statistics at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests center on quantum information theory and quantum computing, particularly nonlocal games and the power of entanglement.
She obtained her bachelor's degree in quantum technology at Aalto University in Finland, driven by her curiosity about the quantum world. After realizing in her first year that a strong mathematical foundation is essential for understanding quantum technology, she decided to pursue a degree in mathematics and statistics at the University of Helsinki alongside her quantum technology studies, graduating with honours in both and continuing both degrees to the master's level. Over time, her interest in nonlocal games deepened, leading her to write her master’s thesis at Aalto University on parallel repetition in nonlocal games. For the future, she is interested in becoming a researcher in the field to advance scientific knowledge through curiosity.
Through the INSPIRE Quantum Master Award, she joined the Quantum Complexity and Cryptography Lab in March 2025, where she is completing her master's project under the supervision of Thomas Vidick, studying the complexity of quantum constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). This project explores the impact of quantum entanglement on computational complexity.
This award is given to female master’s students about to embark on their master’s project. Eligible candidates must demonstrate their motivation and potential to conduct their master’s research project in a laboratory supported by the QSE Center.
Candidates can submit their application at any time but applications will be reviewed twice a year by the QSE executive committee. Please submit your INSPIRE Quantum Master Award applications by email to qse@epfl.ch.