Two researchers in the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS) were among nearly 400 scientists and engineers nationwide honored earlier this month by outgoing President Joe Biden for their exceptional potential for leadership and novel research undertaken early in their scientific careers.
Zohreh Davoudi (left in photo), an associate professor of physics and QuICS fellow, and Justyna Zwolak (right in photo), a mathematician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and an affiliate QuICS fellow, each received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on up-and-coming researchers.
Davoudi researches strongly interacting quantum systems and investigates how elementary particles like quarks and gluons come together and form the matter that makes up our world.
Her work to understand the foundations of matter includes developing theoretical frameworks and applying cutting-edge tools like quantum simulation to studying problems in nuclear and high-energy physics. Ultimately, she hopes to describe the evolution of matter into steady states that occurred in the early universe and that happens at a smaller scale in the aftermath of high-energy particle collisions, like those in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.
In addition to her role in QuICS, she is the associate director for education in the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation.
“I am truly honored by this [PECASE] recognition,” Davoudi said. “I am excited to continue exploring the frontiers of nuclear physics and quantum information science using advanced classical- and quantum-computational methods and to continue building a community of amazing junior and senior collaborators who share the same or similar goals.”
Zwolak was recognized for her research combining machine learning, computer vision and physics-based heuristics to calibrate and control quantum systems, with particular emphasis on enabling the scale-up of semiconductor quantum dot devices, a leading system for building quantum computers.
At UMD, she is active in QuICS with adjunct appointments in physics and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.
Zwolak has developed fundamental and applied advances at the intersection of machine learning and quantum information science, advancing the state-of-the-art in automating challenging quantum computing experiments as well as providing a new foundation for high-dimensional optimization problems.
Her novel use of machine learning to automate the arduous process of tuning quantum dots so that they are usable as quantum computing bits (“qubits”) has enabled such devices to be seriously considered as candidates technologies for creating quantum computers, and also helped spawn a whole new subfield of physics focused on the automated control of precision experiments.
Zwolak said she is honored to receive the PECASE recognition, and is particularly proud that her scientific career has excelled in tandem with her family life. “I want young women to know they can be successful and have a career while also having families, and they don't need to choose one or the other,” she said.