New RQS Program Connects Students to Industry Experts

In late 2023, RQS launched Career Connections, a new workforce development program that invites accomplished experts in quantum science from industry, government, or academia to share insights into career pathways in quantum science and technology with undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs at the five RQS universities. Events in the series include a hybrid lecture and in-person, small group career discussions at the hosting university. This series provides a unique and in-depth lens into the speaker’s research and career development trajectory, builds connections, and offers mentorship opportunities to our community.

A recent event at Princeton University showcased a career talk from Michael Foss-Feig of Quantinuum. The talk's high turnout and enthusiastic reception underscored our community’s desire for career-focused networking and professional development. “It was a wonderful opportunity to engage with someone who had gone through similar graduate school experiences as us and to learn about the similarities and differences he perceives in an industry environment,” said Jeronimo Martinez, RQS student-postdoc council representative and organizer of the event. The hybrid presentation was followed by a more informal discussion to ask for advice and expand professional networks.

Our career talks are supplemented with the guest’s expertise in topics ranging from probabilistic error correction (Zlatko Minev of IBM, speaking at UMD), the latest superconducting qubits (Gregory Quiroz of Johns Hopkins, speaking at UMD), quantum error mitigation (Andrew Eddins of IBM, speaking at Duke), and near-term applications (Michael Foss-Feig of Quantinuum, speaking at Princeton), to ethics in quantum science and technology (Joan Arrow of The Quantum Ethics Project, speaking at UMD). 

RQS Career Connections is designed and facilitated through the RQS Student-Postdoc Council, which features representatives from the five universities in RQS. This council focuses on bringing ideas to the leadership to strengthen our community, elevate students and postdocs needs, and amplify the institute’s goals and programs. They run the summer school, design and execute other community-facing programs, and highlight priorities that improve institute operations. 

We thank the members of the RQS student-postdoc council for their contributions to the Career Connections program:

• Jacob Lin, Postdoc, UMD
• Daniel Weiss, Postdoc, Yale
• Mingyu Kang, Student, Duke
• Jeronimo Martinez, Student, Princeton
• Greeshma Oruganti,Student, UMD
• Hrushikesh Patil, Student, NCSU
• Ian Spielman, Faculty Sponsor, UMD/NIST
• Emily Mercurio, RQS Education and Outreach Coordinator, UMD
• Kuljeet Kaur, RQS Director of Operations, UMD

See all past Career Connections events here.