Outcomes from a workshop on a national center for quantum education
Edwin Barnes, Michael B. Bennett, Alexandra E. Boltasseva, Victoria Borish, Bennett Brown, Lincoln D. Carr, Russell R. Ceballos, Faith Dukes, Emily W. Easton, Sophia E. Economou, E.E. Edwards, Noah D. Finkelstein, Claudia Fracchiolla, Diana M. Franklin, James K. Freericks, V. M. Goss, Mark Hannum, Nancy M. Holincheck, Angela M. Kelly, Olivia Lanes, Heather J. Lewandowski, Karen Jo Matsler, Emily Mercurio, Inès Montaño, Maajida Murdock, Kiera Peltz, Justin K. Perron, Christopher J. K. Richardson, Jessica L. Rosenberg, Richard S. Ross, Minjung Ryu, Raymond E. Samuel, Nicole Schrode, Susan Schwamberger, Thomas A. Searles, Chandralekha Singh, Alexandra Tingle, Benjamin M. Zwickl
In response to numerous programs seeking to advance quantum education and workforce development in the United States, experts from academia, industry, government, and professional societies convened for a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop in February 2024 to explore the benefits and challenges of establishing a national center for quantum education. Broadly, such a center would foster collaboration and build the infrastructure required to develop a diverse and quantum-ready workforce. The workshop discussions focused on how a center could uniquely address gaps in public, K-12, and undergraduate quantum information science and engineering (QISE) education. Specifically, the community identified activities that, through a center, could lead to an increase in student awareness of quantum careers, boost the number of educators trained in quantum-related subjects, strengthen pathways into quantum careers, enhance the understanding of the US quantum workforce, and elevate public engagement with QISE. Core proposed activities for the center include professional development for educators, coordinated curriculum development and curation, expanded access to educational laboratory equipment, robust evaluation and assessment practices, network building, and enhanced public engagement with quantum science.
In response to numerous programs seeking to advance quantum education and workforce development in the United States, experts from academia, industry, government, and professional societies convened for a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop in February 2024 to explore the benefits and challenges of establishing a national center for quantum education. Broadly, such a center would foster collaboration and build the infrastructure required to develop a diverse and quantum-ready workforce. The workshop discussions focused on how a center could uniquely address gaps in public, K-12, and undergraduate quantum information science and engineering (QISE) education. Specifically, the community identified activities that, through a center, could lead to an increase in student awareness of quantum careers, boost the number of educators trained in quantum-related subjects, strengthen pathways into quantum careers, enhance the understanding of the US quantum workforce, and elevate public engagement with QISE. Core proposed activities for the center include professional development for educators, coordinated curriculum development and curation, expanded access to educational laboratory equipment, robust evaluation and assessment practices, network building, and enhanced public engagement with quantum science.
Abstract Interest in building dedicated quantum information science and engineering (QISE) education programs has greatly expanded in recent years. These programs are inherently convergent, complex, often resource intensive and likely require collaboration with a broad variety of stakeholders. In order to address this combination of challenges, we have captured ideas from many members in the community. This manuscript not only addresses policy makers and funding agencies (both public and private and from the regional to the international level) but also contains needs identified by industry leaders and discusses the difficulties inherent in creating an inclusive QISE curriculum. We report on the status of eighteen post-secondary education programs in QISE and provide guidance for building new programs. Lastly, we encourage the development of a comprehensive strategic plan for quantum education and workforce development as a means to make the most of the ongoing substantial investments being made in QISE.
The advent of the post-quantum era introduces significant challenges and opportunities, particularly a pressing workforce gap in quantum computing education and skills.In response, public and private stakeholders are actively enhancing their efforts to advance quantum education.For instance, IBM's recent pledge to upskill 30 million individuals by 2030 specifically emphasizes quantum computing and cryptography.Similarly, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the U.S. National Science Foundation, have engaged in quantum education discussions at a summit that brought together leading educators and professionals in Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST) to strategize on future workforce development.Additionally, NIST is gearing up to unveil its post-quantum cryptography standard in the near future.Despite these efforts, collaboration across sectors in aligning quantum education approaches needs more focus.As experienced educators and researchers, our observation is that while cybersecurity education has witnessed extensive collaboration across government, industry, and academia, quantum education in some sectors is not receiving the attention as highlighted by government initiatives.We propose a systematic approach, leveraging established frameworks like NICE, to integrate quantum computing education into mainstream curricula to ensure that industry will not have the large gap of filling jobs as the cybersecurity sector is currently experiencing.We present an analysis of two courses introduced in our CS department: "Introduction to Quantum Computing," and "Quantum Computing II."We outline the course modules specifically crafted to heighten students' quantum awareness and curiosity as they will be confronted with opportunities and issues related to quantum computing in their software engineering careers.Our student survey results, utilizing a Likert scale ranking, indicate a significant increase in students' interest and curiosity in quantum concepts, as well as their eagerness to further explore quantum computing.These results that we are meeting our educational objectives.
Rapid advances in quantum technology have exacerbated the shortage of a diverse, inclusive, and sustainable quantum workforce. National governments and industries are developing strategies for education, training, and workforce development to accelerate the commercialization of quantum technologies. We report the existing state of the quantum workforce as well as several learning pathways to nurture the talent pipeline between academia and industry. We provide a comprehensive guide to various educational initiatives accessible throughout the world, such as online courses, conferences, seminars, games, and community-focused networks, that facilitate quantum training and upskill the talent needed to develop a better quantum future.
IEEE Quantum Week 2022 Workshops provide forums for group discussions (i.e., 20-50 participants) on QCE22 topics in quantum research, practice, education, and applications.Workshops provide opportunities for researchers, practitioners, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, developers, students, educators, programmers, and newcomers to exchange and discuss scientific and engineering ideas at an early stage before they have matured to warrant a conference or journal publication.In this manner, an IEEE Quantum Week workshop serves as a forum for common interests or as an incubator for a scientific community to form a research roadmap or share a research agenda.Workshops are the key to sustaining, growing, and evolving IEEE Quantum Week in the future.For the first time, the QCE22 program includes a colocated conference, the Quantum Science and Engineering Conference, where education researchers and practitioners come together to discuss methodologies for curriculum and tool development for instruction and teaching.We expect this to become an annual event, emphasizing the importance of education in building a broad and diverse quantum community and workforce.xlvii
Since 2019, eighteen NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) awards in quantum information science and engineering (QISE) and adjacent fields have been funded, constituting the largest NSF-coordinated investment in graduate QISE training in the United States. Synthesizing lessons from our programs, we work through the central tensions that every QISE graduate program must negotiate: between depth in a home discipline and breadth across the field, between structured instruction and open-ended experiential and hands-on learning, and between training individual specialists and cultivating teams that collectively cover all areas of QISE. We describe the structural and pedagogical innovations the NRT programs have developed in response, assess what is working and what remains unresolved, and sketch 12 open problems the community will need to address as QISE graduate education scales beyond the well-resourced research universities where it has up till now been mainly concentrated. Eight concrete recommendations follow: (1) adopt the startup model of team-based training as an organizing philosophy; (2) invest immediately in sensing and communication curriculum development; (3) build student agency into program governance, not just activities; (4) establish structural mechanisms for industrial engagement rather than depending on goodwill; (5) design for sustainability from year one; (6) develop graduate-level textbooks spanning all three QISE pillars: computing, sensing, and communications; (7) establish shared outcome assessment instruments across programs; and (8) develop structured mechanisms for faculty professional development in QISE.
Currently, education and workforce training in quantum information science and technology (QIST) exists primarily at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, with few undergraduate efforts beginning to grow out of these. In order to meet the anticipated quantum workforce needs and to ensure that the workforce is demographically representative and inclusive to all communities, the United States must expand these efforts at the undergraduate level beyond what is occurring at larger PhD granting institutions and incorporate quantum information science into the curriculum at the nation's predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). On June 3rd and 4th, 2021 the Quantum Undergraduate Education and Scientific Training (QUEST) workshop was held virtually with the goal of bringing together faculty from PUIs to learn the state of undergraduate QIST education, identify challenges associated with implementing QIST curriculum at PUIs, and to develop strategies and solutions to deal with these challenges. This manuscript summarizes the results of workshop discussions with the hope of assisting faculty at PUIs attempting to incorporate quantum information science into their curriculum.