12/15/2025
Illinois graduate students and postdocs attended the eight annual Chicago Quantum Summit as members of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST) to present their cutting-edge research in quantum information technologies.
Illinois graduate students and postdocs attended the eight annual Chicago Quantum Summit as members of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST) to present their cutting-edge research in quantum information technologies. At the summit, they also engaged with the interdisciplinary and collaborative Chicago quantum ecosystem.
Chicago Quantum Summit is a conference for scientific and government leaders in emerging quantum information technologies. Examples of quantum information technologies include quantum computers, which will revolutionize digital security, and quantum sensors, which have the potential to significantly improve certain medical diagnoses. The summit is organized by the Chicago Quantum Exchange, an organization founded to create a midwest community of experts in the development and application of quantum technologies.
The Chicago Quantum Exchange was founded in 2017 by multiple midwest national labs and research institutions, including IQUIST. IQUIST is a natural partner for the Chicago Quantum Exchange since the two share similar missions–IQUIST brings together physicists, electrical engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, entrepreneurs, and other experts across campus to accelerate growing efforts in quantum information science research and technology development. As a founding member of the Chicago Quantum Exchange, IQUIST helps connect University of Illinois faculty, students, and postdocs to the wider midwestern quantum ecosystem.
The interdisciplinary and collaborative style of IQUIST and the Chicago Quantum Exchange is especially important for the field of quantum information technology because many of the applications are not well understood. Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionize areas of our lives, but expertise across different fields is needed to understand the best use cases. For example, quantum sensors have the potential to image individual proteins in a cell, but expertise from molecular and cellular biologists is needed to best deploy this for human health benefits.
At this year’s Chicago Quantum Summit, Seokfin Bae, a postdoctoral researcher working with Illinois Physics Department Head Vidya Madhavan, received the 2025 Boeing Quantum Creators prize. He received this prize for his development of an instrument that captures snapshots of the atomic world at the femtosecond timescale.
The Boeing Quantum Creators Prize awards early-career researchers for work that moves the field of quantum information science and engineering in new directions. Along with the other 2025 prize winners, he was invited to give a talk at the summit on his award-winning work.
Bae found participants from a variety of backgrounds were interested in the applications of his work, which may include imagining a chemical reaction in real time.
Illinois Physics Ph.D. students have a history of receiving this prize, with Colin Lualdi and Anuva Aishwarya winning it in 2022 and Yujie Zhang in 2023. All doctoral students highlighted in this article are from the Illinois Physics Department.
“It’s an exciting time to build a company in this space, and programs like the Duality accelerator have provided invaluable support, helping us transition from academic research to building and operating a business, including learning how to raise capital and grow sustainably.”
Kelsey Ortiz, Head of Design, Photon Queue
This year, Lualdi won first place overall in the poster session for his work on developing a revolutionary new quantum measurement tool. This new optical interferometry technology leverages the quantum properties of light—specifically, extreme color entanglement—to enable faster and more precise measurements than widely used classical and quantum techniques can achieve.
Lualdi’s work generated excitement amongst the conference attendees, “Overall, people were intrigued by how our unique combination of high resolution and sensing resilience is enabling new investigations that can be challenging to conduct using existing methods, such as measuring the nanometer-scale thickness of lossy thin films,” comments Lualdi.
Another possible application that Lualdi discussed in his poster presentation was long-distance vibrometry–for example, the need to monitor some machinery in a distant, inaccessible space.
Kelsey Ortiz, a Ph.D. student and Head of Design at Photon Queue, was invited to speak on a panel about scaling-up quantum technologies for practical use.
Photon Queue is a start-up developing quantum memories, which is necessary for scalable quantum computing and quantum networking. She co-founded the company with fellow students in Illinois Physics Professor Paul Kwiat’s research group–Nathan Arnold, the company’s CEO and Colin Lualdi, Head of Architecture. Kai Shinbrough, doctoral graduate of Illinois Physics Professor Virgina Lorenz’s group, also co-founded the company and is currently Head of Science at Photon Queue.
On the panel, Ortiz shared her perspective as a founder of an early-stage startup and discussed how the growing Chicago quantum ecosystem has been instrumental to the team’s success. Ortiz says, “It’s an exciting time to build a company in this space, and programs like the Duality accelerator have provided invaluable support, helping us transition from academic research to building and operating a business, including learning how to raise capital and grow sustainably.”
She had several promising conversations with people interested in partnering or potentially purchasing the start-up’s technology. Photon Queue also plans to start hiring around the new year. Ortiz says, “We’re looking for motivated students and professionals with backgrounds in optical or electrical engineering who are excited to contribute to an early-stage quantum hardware company.”
Alongside presenting their leading-edge science, Illinois students connected with the forward-looking community of quantum experts at the summit.
John Floyd, Illinois Ph.D. student, reflected on centering ethics in his future work in quantum networking. A conference highlight for him was the session on responsibly developing quantum technology. “It motivated me to reduce the carbon footprint of my work, and to ensure that all groups benefit from quantum technology, regardless of socio-economic status,” says Floyd.
Ellen Gulian, also an Illinois Ph.D. student, came to the conference hoping to learn about quantum computing work in national laboratories and industry settings. She found the structure of the conference and the relaxed atmosphere conducive to natural conversations pertaining to both research and career advice, and her poster covering her research on a novel topological quantum computing platform was popular amongst the participants.
Max Gold, an Illinois Ph.D. student who presented his work on quantum cryptography, was impressed that Illinois governor JB Pritzker opened the conference. Pritzker has long been a strong advocate of quantum technological development in Chicago. Gold would like to continue work in quantum information in Illinois after graduation, and this level of institutional support gives him confidence that Chicago will be a fruitful place to pursue a career in quantum.
Ujaan Purakayastha, an Illinois Ph.D. student near the end of his degree, expressed gratitude for his experience in the Chicago quantum ecosystem. He began his Ph.D. shortly after National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers were established under the 2018 Quantum Initiative Act. Since these centers are up for renewal every five years, about the length of Purakayastha’s Ph.D., coming back to the conference now was a full-circle moment.
“When I started my Ph.D., each of these quantum centers was just starting up. Coming back to this summit approaching the end of my degree, it’s great to see how each person has contributed something to these large projects, and that we are, together, accomplishing what we originally set out to do.”
At the summit, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $625 million in funding to renew these QIS Research Centers.
With an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment, and a large amount of institutional support, the future of quantum is bright for Illinois students and postdocs.
Lualdi comments, “I feel very fortunate to have done my PhD research in Illinois at a time when we have all these phenomenal programs and organizations working together to foster a rich quantum community.”