My name is Tom Wong, and I am an assistant professor of physics at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. I had the pleasure of visiting the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) Qubit Collaboratory (LQC) for eight months, from June 2021 through February 2022. In this blog post, I will share my experiences.

The LQC is one of thirteen National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers. It was launched in November 2020 and is a part of LPS. LPS was founded in 1956 and is a federal research laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), and its location makes it easy to collaborate with researchers from the university and beyond. For example, I was able to catch up with a scientist at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), which is also on the UMD campus. I was also able to attend many quantum computing talks at UMD. Although UMD is a large campus, it has a campus shuttle system with a stop conveniently just outside of LPS, so getting around campus was easy. Many students from UMD also do research at LPS, including thesis research. There are also many postdocs conducting research here.

What drew me to the LQC was the opportunity to work on broad-reaching educational and workforce development initiatives in QIS. The LQC currently has six research thrusts, which you can read about here on their website. Five of them are related to overcoming the technical challenges around building qubits, but the sixth is related to quantum education and workforce development. Along this sixth thrust, I helped with the LQC’s inaugural Summer of Quantum program and co-organize two workshops.

There were two components to the Summer of Quantum program. One is a residency program, where summer students and professors do research at LQC for about ten weeks. To supplement this scientific work, the LQC hosted a seminar series of technical talks and career talks, where LQC scientists shared their career journeys and what it is like to work at LPS. There were also enrichment activities, like hikes, an end of the summer picnic, and a dinner to culminate the program.

The other component to LQC’s Summer of Quantum was a two-week “workshop,” but perhaps it would be better to call it a “summer school” or short course. The workshop consisted of a series of lectures and hands-on activities to teach roughly fifty participants the basics of quantum computing and quantum hardware. The lectures and activities were led by both LPS scientists and experts outside of LPS. Originally, the workshop was supposed to be in-person, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was held virtually, and the hands-on exercises consisted of IBM Quantum and QuTIP exercises. For the Summer of Quantum Workshop, I lectured on the basics of quantum mechanics, and I was available in breakout rooms to help students with the hands-on exercises. This was a nice use of my skills as a professor; at Creighton, I had taught undergraduate quantum mechanics several times, and I had also taught an introductory quantum computing course several times. Since the workshop was virtual, there were some nice video tours of the LQC laboratories, too.

Speaking of the LQC laboratories, I was very impressed by the amount of experimental quantum computing research that was being done at LPS/LQC. Granted, I am a theorist who works on quantum algorithms, so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but LPS has a lot of state-of-the-art equipment. For example, they have a clean room where scientists and students can fabricate quantum devices. They are experimenting with possibly better ways to build qubits using techniques from materials science, like molecular beam epitaxy, and they are studying superconducting, semiconducting, and hybrid quantum processors. They have also purchased a ton of new equipment for LQC including several dilution refrigerators, and they are undergoing renovations of laboratory space to house it all.

For the workshops that I helped organize, the first was a Workshop on Quantum Recruitment in Government, which we organized in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO). It was a great experience meeting so many technical and hiring managers, program managers, and recruitment experts across the federal government, and it was rewarding to work together to determine how we can better recruit and retain top talent in QIS. A summary of our findings are available on the National Quantum Initiative Website here.

The second was a Workshop on Postsecondary Quantum Education and Training. As I previously mentioned, I had taught an introductory quantum computing course at Creighton several times, so this workshop was very fitting for my interests. We convened academics to share what they are doing with regards to quantum education and training, and we invited industry and government representatives to share their workforce needs. Several educational gaps were identified, and a synopsis of the workshop posted to the LQC website here, and it even made its way onto the National Quantum Initiative website here.

These are just some of the activities I engaged in while visiting LQC. Besides these, I learned a lot about what it is like to work at a government research lab. Some of the stereotypes are true, such as the high job stability, and the bureaucracy around performing certain tasks. But, other stereotypes are false. Scientists are not muzzled about their work. Rather, they are free to share and publish, they attend and present at conferences, and collaborations with academia and industry are welcome.

I would recommend visiting LQC if you get the chance. As a collaboratory, LQC is always looking for collaborators, and they are even hiring full-time scientists. For students, summer research and postdocs are options, and they are planning the Summer of Quantum again for 2022.

Thanks to everyone at LPS and LQC for your hospitality during my visit. I would also like to thank my home institution, Creighton University, for the time off. My experience working at a National QIS Research Center was invaluable.