Management
Leadership
Travis Humble
As interim director of the QSC, Humble leads the Center and serves as the primary contact for DOE, as well as leads the co-design/scientific integration and Industry Council coordination. Humble is a distinguished scientist at ORNL, director of the lab’s Quantum Computing Institute, an associate professor with the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education at the University of Tennessee, and an associate editor for the Quantum Information Processing journal. He received his doctorate in theoretical chemistry from the University of Oregon before coming to ORNL in 2005.
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Stephen Jesse
As well as serving as interim deputy director of the QSC, Stephen Jesse is a distinguished research scientist and head of the Nanomaterials Characterization Section at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. His research has primarily focused on developing new approaches for both scanning probe and electron microscopy to not only image materials and discern functionality at nano and atomic scales, but also to use these platforms to transform materials at these scales to introduce new properties. His recent work is aimed at using the focused electron beam of the scanning transmission electron microscope to precisely build atomic defects with useful properties in order to “quantum functionalize” 2D material systems for use in devices for quantum information science.
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Joel Moore
Moore, a theoretical physicist studying condensed matter, serves as the QSC’s chief scientist. His chief research interest is in the properties of “quantum materials,” in which electron-electron interactions or wavefunction topology yield new states of matter. Moore joined the physics department at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor in January 2002. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in physics from Princeton University in 1995 and spent a Fulbright year abroad before graduate studies at MIT on a Hertz fellowship.
Joe Lake
Lake is the chief operations officer for the QSC. In this role, he leads several key focus areas related to operational support, including project management, procurement, intellectual property, communications, and environment, safety, health, and quality. Prior to being named COO, Lake was a member of the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) division at ORNL, where he managed strategic programs supporting collaborations between NCCS and the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Lake holds a B.S. degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Tennessee and a M.S. degree in project management from Boston University. He is also a certified project management professional through the Project Management Institute.
Alexandra (Sasha) Boltasseva
Boltasseva serves as the QSC’s workforce development lead. Boltasseva received her PhD from the Technical University of Denmark and is currently the Ron and Dotty Garvin Tonjes Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University where she specializes in nanophotonics, optical metamaterials and quantum photonics. As Purdue’s Discovery Park fellow, Boltasseva leads the university-wide multidisciplinary Big Idea Challenge program in quantum information science and technology/security/health. She is editor-in-chief of the Optical Society of America’s Optical Materials Express journal.
Teresa Hurt
Hurt is the senior administrative assistant to the interim director of the QSC. In this position, she works closely with the interim director, interim deputy director, and numerous principal investigators providing administrative support. Hurt joined ORNL in 2012. Before the QSC, she provided support to the Climate Change Science Institute and the Computer Science and Mathematics Division.
Advisory Boards and Councils
Science Advisory Board
The Science Advisory Board (SAB) advises QSC leadership broadly on issues related to the scientific functioning of the Center. Its members are distinguished scientists whose work spans the scientific areas of the QSC, and many also have experience with scientific management. They are not funded by the QSC and are drawn from a range of domestic and international institutions. The SAB also serves as an additional means to disseminate information about the QSC and develop links with other centers and programs in the Center’s scientific areas.
Allan MacDonald
Chair, UT-Austin
Despina Louca
UVA
David Cory
Waterloo
Elizabeth Crosson
UNM
Oleg Tchernyshyov
Johns Hopkins
Ian Shipsey
Oxford
Marcel Franz
UBC
Marc Kastner
MIT
Olivier Pfister
University of Virginia
Jeter Hall
SNOLAB
John Martinis
UCSB
Industry Advisory Council
The QSC engages directly with the private sector through a dedicated Industry Advisory Council (IAC) composed of senior leadership from industrial stakeholders who provide perspective on the potential impact of quantum science and technology on US industrial competitiveness. The IAC meets twice per year to receive highlights on the signature capabilities of the QSC through prototype and application demonstrations and provides advice to the QSC leadership team to ensure maximum national gain.
Bo Begole
Chair, AMD Research
Julie Love
Microsoft Research
Annarita Giani
GE Research
Evert Geurtsen
NQIT, Oxford
David Rivas
Rigetti
Jamie Thomas
IBM
Marco Pistoia
JPMorgan Chase
Amy Herhold
ExxonMobil
Simone Severini
Amazon Web Services
Bob Lucas
Ansys
Christopher Haimberger
TOPTICA
Joydip Ghosh
Ford
Gabriele Compostella
Volkswagen
Governance Advisory Board
The QSC Governance Advisory Board is made up of partner managers and convenes to review the Center’s strategic direction and support QSC leadership in managing effective interfaces to R&D, technology transfer, and commercialization.
Doug Kothe
Associate Laboratory Director for Computing and Computational Sciences, ORNL
Irene Qualters
Associate Laboratory Director for Simulation and Computation, LANL
Toni Taylor
Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences, LANL
Yong Chen
Director, Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute
Joe Lykken
Deputy Director for Research, Fermilab
Chetan Nayak
Director, Station Q, Microsoft
Cynthia Jenks
Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences, ORNL
Zhihong Chen
Interim Director, Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue
Panagiotis Spentzouris
Senior Scientist, Head Quantum Science Program, Fermilab