Lane Gunderman of University of Illinois Chicago

While there is tremendous buzz around quantum computing, there's also a lot of misinformation around it too. I will discuss the foundational principles (some of which are possible classically!) which could enable more rapid solutions to particular problems, including drug and materials discoveries. Following this overview of what could be possible with quantum computers, I will briefly discuss various modalities that are being worked on, their current public progress, along with some of their challenges. I will then discuss some possibly exciting directions which may enable more exotic varieties of quantum computers while having reliable computation, which is more aligned with my own expertise.

Biography:

Professor Lane Gunderman is originally from Chicagoland. He went to MIT for undergrad (2013-2017), majoring in both physics and math. Following that he went to the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) for graduate school (2017-2022) in physics where he worked on theory related to quantum error-correcting codes and hybrid quantum devices. Since then he has worked at Xanadu Quantum Technology as a quantum error-correction researcher and HRL Laboratories as a research scientist. He joined UIC's ECE department in the fall of 2024, leading a group of researchers.