Quantum Information

Professor Sheila Rowan is the Chair of Natural Philosophy and since 2009, Director of the Institute for Gravitational Research in the University of Glasgow in the UK. She received her BSc (1991) and PhD (1995) in the field of gravitational wave instrumentation from the University of Glasgow, and subsequently held research positions split between Stanford University and Glasgow before returning full time to a Faculty position in Glasgow in 2003. She was awarded a Leverhulme Prize for Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2005, elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2018. She received the Hoyle Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 2016 in recognition of her pioneering research on aspects of the technology of gravitational wave observatories. She is currently President Elect of the UK Institute of Physics.

Martin Dawson is professor and director of research at the University of Strathclyde’s Institute of Photonics, which he helped establish almost 25 years ago. Since 2012 he has also been the inaugural Head of the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (Fraunhofer CAP) in Glasgow. Martin has contributed broadly to laser and semiconductor research including ultrafast lasers, optically-pumped semiconductor lasers, diamond photonics and micro-LEDs, the latter of which is now emerging globally as a new form of commercial display technology. He holds fellowships of the IEEE, OSA, Institute of Physics and Royal Society of Edinburgh, and he has been awarded the Dennis Gabor Medal and Prize of the IOP and the Aron Kressel Award of the IEEE.

Knight is Chair of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme Strategy Advisory Board and has been involved in the creation of the UK Quantum programme since its inception, including the creation of the UK Quantum Strategy and the commitment of £2.5bn over the next decade to the field.  He chairs the Quantum Metrology Institute at the National Physical Laboratory and is Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College where until 2010 he was Deputy Rector (Research). He was knighted in 2005 for his work in optical physics. Knight was the 2004 President of the Optical Society of America and 2011-2013 President of the Institute of Physics. He was until 2010 chair of the UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council and remains a UK Government science advisor. His research centres on quantum optics, nonclassical light and quantum technology. He has won the Thomas Young Medal and the Glazebrook Medal of the Institute of Physics, the Ives Medal and the Walther Medal and Prize of the OSA, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Faraday Prize of the IET.

Elham Kashefi (FRSE) is a Professor of Quantum Computing at the University of Edinburgh and CNRS Director of Research at Sorbonne Universite and NQCC Chief scientist. She has pioneered transdisciplinary research on the structure, behaviour, and interactions of quantum technology, from formal and foundational aspects all the way to actual industrial use-case delivery (co-founder of VeriQloud). Kashefi's research team innovates across a broad range of platforms (photonic, superconducting, ion trap) with an integrated software research programme (simulation, modelling and benchmarking) delivering impact in quantum computing (machine learning, cryptanalysis) and quantum networks (quantum cryptography, quantum cloud computing) in a certifiable way (provable security and verification of computation).

Andrew Daley is a Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of Oxford. Originally from New Zealand, he completed his PhD at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh before taking up a position as Professor of Theoretical Quantum Optics at the University of Strathclyde in 2013. 

His research bridges fundamental research in quantum optics and many-body physics to the design and applications of quantum technologies. He is PI of the new QCi3 Hub in the UK National Quantum Technologies programme, and PI of the EPSRC Programme Grant in Quantum Advantage in Quantitative Quantum Simulation. 

An important part of his research team's work focusses on developing new implementations of quantum computing and quantum simulation, and their applications both in fundamental physics (many-body dynamics and open quantum systems), and more widely across science, engineering, and industry.

Professor Jennifer Hastie is Director of the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, an applied research unit and cost centre within the Department of Physics with more than 70 staff and postgraduate students conducting research in Advanced Lasers, Photonic Integration and Devices, Neurophotonics, and Optical Wireless Communications. She leads the Institute’s research in high brightness lasers with a primary interest in meeting the challenging laser performance requirements for cutting-edge applications in metrology and quantum technology, and from 2014-2024 she was on the Management Board of the National Quantum Technology Hub for Sensing & Timing. She is Deputy Principal Investigator of the EPSRC-funded programmes the Photonics & Quantum Accelerator and the National Hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation, and Timing. In 2023 she was elected a Fellow of Optica for “leadership in the photonics and quantum technology community and pioneering technical contributions in the area of narrow-linewidth lasers.”

Steve Brierley founded Riverlane in 2016 to build the error correction stack for quantum computers. Driven by his conviction that fault-tolerant quantum computers will accelerate human progress, Riverlane partners with leading quantum hardware companies to make that happen sooner. Steve has worked in quantum for over 20 years and is an expert advisor to the UK government. He holds a PhD in quantum information, spent a decade in the intelligence community and worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge leading major research projects in quantum computing. In January 2024, Steve was awarded an OBE for his services to quantum computing.

Richard co-founded ORCA Computing in 2019. He is an accomplished business executive and technologist with a PhD in quantum atom-optics and over 15 years of experience managing scientific teams working on disruptive early-stage technologies such as quantum, AR/VR and other consumer and industrial applications of photonics. Under Richard's leadership, the company has grown to a team of over 65 people and expanded its global presence by establishing U.S. headquarters in Austin, Texas, following a strategic acquisition in 2024. He developed a roadmap focused on building a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer. Previously, Richard worked for the UK government alongside Sir Peter Knight creating the £270m UK quantum technologies program. He was also pivotal in the early stages of the €1 billion EU quantum flagship program.

Prof Leigh Lapworth is a Rolls-Royce Engineering Fellow specialising in Computational Science with over 30 years’ experience of developing and applying physics-based simulation using High Performance Supercomputers. He led the development of the Rolls-Royce corporate CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). Other previous roles include Chief Design Systems Architect and Head of Computational Science. He has led several successful industrial-academic collaborative research projects. The most recent being a pre-exascale EPSRC Prosperity Partnership. Leigh leads the Rolls-Royce Quantum Computing initiative. To date this includes three Innovate UK co-funded projects and a small portfolio of directly funded projects with national and international partners. These focus on algorithms for error corrected computers and the hybrid classical-quantum interface.

Leigh is a Chartered Mathematician and Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and an Honorary Professorial Fellow in Computer Science at the University of Warwick.

Dr. Carmen Palacios-Berraquero is the Founder and Chief Executive of Nu Quantum, the leading quantum entanglement company, based in Cambridge, UK. She is an award-winning quantum physicist and inventor, author of several high-impact research papers and a book based on her doctoral research. Prior to founding Nu Quantum, Carmen earned her PhD in physics at the University of Cambridge and undergraduate at Imperial College London. She also serves on the Technical Advisory Board of the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre and is Cofounder and Director of UKQuantum, the UK’s quantum industry group. She has been the leader of several pro-equality and LGBTQIA+ visibility groups, and initiatives in STEM and has been featured in Wired, Fortune, Bloomberg, BBC, and Sifted.

Alexander Tzalenchuk is a Fellow at the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL). He also holds a Chair in physics at University of London’s Royal Holloway College. During his career Alexander has been involved in projects concerning quantum metrology, magnetic and superconducting macroscopic quantum systems, single particle detection, terahertz photon counting, scanning probe microscopy. His current focus is physics of advanced materials in application to quantum electrical metrology and research underpinning scalability of quantum computers and networks. Alexander plays a leading role in the NPL quantum programme and has become a founding member of the Technical Committee “Quantum Measurement and Quantum Information” of the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO). He has established a lecture course “Frontiers of Metrology” at Royal Holloway.

Roberto Desimone has a proven track record both in industry and academia, having pursued research and innovation for over 40 years in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and quantum computing, especially for applications to military decision-making for command/control and intelligence; global crisis response management/wargaming; cyber/financial threat analysis/mitigation; and dynamic logistics scheduling. He has recently retired from BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, where he led their Strategic Innovation (Disruptive Technologies) programme for over 11 years, and is now consulting on the commercialisation of quantum technology at Plantagenet Systems (founding director). He has a BSc in ElecEng (Bath University, 1978-82), and PhD in AI/Machine learning (Edinburgh University, 1984-87). He pursued postdoctoral applied research in the AI Applications Institute (Edinburgh, 1987-90), and Stanford Research Institute (California, 1990-95), where he worked for DARPA programs for Operation Desert Storm (1991-92). He was also a Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR) within the Quantum Engineering Technology Lab at Bristol University (2019-22) and is currently a visiting professor in Quantum Systems Engineering at Loughborough University, and was formerly a visiting professor in AI at Cranfield University (National Defence Academy, Shrivenham, 2002-09). 

Eleni Diamanti is CNRS research director at the LIP6 laboratory of Sorbonne University in Paris. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2006 and performed her postdoc as a Marie Curie fellow at the Institute of Optics Graduate School in Palaiseau before joining the CNRS in 2009. Her research focuses on experimental quantum cryptography and communication, and on the development of photonic resources and applications for quantum networks. She is a recipient of a European Research Council Starting Grant, coordinator of the Paris Centre for Quantum Technologies, and was awarded the CNRS Silver and Innovation Medals in 2024. She is also cofounder and scientific advisor of the start-up company Welinq that specializes in quantum interconnect technology.

Ilyas founded Cambridge Quantum in 2014 and was the founding CEO of Quantinuum, the company created as a result of the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum. As well as being Vice-Chairman of the board of directors, he is also the Chief Product Officer of Quantinuum and part of the executive leadership team of the company. 

He is the Leader in Residence at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School where he was instrumental in establishing the highly regarded Accelerate Cambridge program of investment in early-stage Cambridge-based deep-science technology sector companies. 

Ilyas was the inaugural Chairman of The Stephen Hawking Foundation, holding the post until 2019. He is also the founding Chairman (non-executive) of the Topos Institute. He is also a fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Ilyas is recognised as one of the founders and leading voices in the quantum computing industry globally.

Andrew leads the quantum technology business in Toshiba, which is commercialising quantum safe communications from their sites in Cambridge, UK and Tokyo, Japan.  Previously he led R&D in Toshiba on quantum technology, publishing over 500 research papers and patents in this field. He was a co-founder of the Industry Specification Group for QKD at ETSI and served as Chair for several years.  He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and has been awarded the Mott (2013) and  Katharine Burr Blodgett (2022) Medals by the Institute of Physics