Claudia Zendejas Morales BioClaudia Zendejas-Morales is a physicist and computer engineer. Her work and community involvement have been internationally recognized, as she was selected for UNESCO's Quantum 100 list within the framework of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ 2025). She has completed two MicroMasters in Quantum Technologies at Purdue University and is a certified Qiskit developer and Qiskit Advocate. She is actively involved with QWorld, where she has served as an instructor and teaching assistant, coordinated the QClass23/24 program, and currently co-coordinates the QEducation department. She is pursuing postgraduate studies in Quantum Information Science at the University of Copenhagen. Her research interests focus on theoretical quantum information and the mathematical foundations of quantum computing. TITLE: From Curiosity to Quantum Information Science: Building Skills, Community, and Practical Projects Abstract: In this keynote, I will share my path into quantum technologies and how it led me to focus my work on Quantum Information Science in Denmark. I will discuss how I approach learning and research in a fast-moving field by combining strong fundamentals, hands-on practice, and open collaboration through community-driven initiatives. To ground the talk, I will highlight two ongoing projects: "Local and Multi-Scale Strategies to Mitigate Exponential Concentration in Quantum Kernels" and "Compact Single-Qubit Gate Decomposition via Lie-Aware Solovay–Kitaev Recursion". I will close with practical lessons on choosing meaningful projects, finding supportive communities, and building a sustainable roadmap toward real opportunities in quantum.
Claudia Zendejas Morales BioClaudia Zendejas-Morales is a physicist and computer engineer. Her work and community involvement have been internationally recognized, as she was selected for UNESCO's Quantum 100 list within the framework of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ 2025). She has completed two MicroMasters in Quantum Technologies at Purdue University and is a certified Qiskit developer and Qiskit Advocate. She is actively involved with QWorld, where she has served as an instructor and teaching assistant, coordinated the QClass23/24 program, and currently co-coordinates the QEducation department. She is pursuing postgraduate studies in Quantum Information Science at the University of Copenhagen. Her research interests focus on theoretical quantum information and the mathematical foundations of quantum computing. TITLE: From Curiosity to Quantum Information Science: Building Skills, Community, and Practical Projects Abstract: In this keynote, I will share my path into quantum technologies and how it led me to focus my work on Quantum Information Science in Denmark. I will discuss how I approach learning and research in a fast-moving field by combining strong fundamentals, hands-on practice, and open collaboration through community-driven initiatives. To ground the talk, I will highlight two ongoing projects: "Local and Multi-Scale Strategies to Mitigate Exponential Concentration in Quantum Kernels" and "Compact Single-Qubit Gate Decomposition via Lie-Aware Solovay–Kitaev Recursion". I will close with practical lessons on choosing meaningful projects, finding supportive communities, and building a sustainable roadmap toward real opportunities in quantum.
The rapid growth of quantum information science and technology (QIST) presents unique educational challenges as it brings together students and researchers from many disciplines. This work presents findings from in-depth interviews with leading quantum researchers who are also educators, whose perspectives provide guidance for developing a framework for interdisciplinary QIST teaching and builds on our earlier paper that focused on QIST courses and curricula. We discuss quantum educators’ reflections on three critical aspects of QIST education: (1) the development of a common interdisciplinary language, (2) determining appropriate levels of abstraction and physical detail for diverse student populations from various disciplines, and (3) why students should pursue courses, degrees, and careers in this rapidly evolving field. Our analysis reveals that the emergence of linguistic evolutions such as “qubits” and “measurement bases”, rather than a focus on measurement of physical observables and their corresponding Hermitian operators, has begun to create a unifying framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries. Nevertheless, educators face ongoing challenges in balancing the level of abstractness with physical details as well as mathematical rigor with conceptual accessibility, particularly when teaching foundational QIST courses to an interdisciplinary group of students. The experts emphasize that successful QIST education for an interdisciplinary student body not only requires a shift from traditional quantum mechanics pedagogy for physics majors, but careful consideration of students’ diverse prior conceptual and mathematical foundations overall. They encourage students to pursue QIST related courses, degrees, and careers, highlighting the unique historical opportunity to participate in creating transformative quantum technologies while developing transferable skills for an evolving technological landscape. These findings provide valuable guidance for developing a framework for interdisciplinary QIST teaching especially useful for foundational courses.
Abstract As the field of quantum information science and engineering (QISE) continues its rapid growth, there are increasing concerns about the workforce demands and the necessity of preparing students for quantum-related careers. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, it is necessary to offer diverse educational opportunities to ensure that students are well-prepared for careers emerging from the second quantum revolution. In this paper, we present our findings from a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with university QISE educators, who have taken on the challenges and opportunities in developing QISE courses and curricula for undergraduate and graduate students from different academic backgrounds. Our findings focus on common themes across undergraduate and graduate QISE education, as well as advising and mentoring students to prepare them for research in the field. The interviewees discussed the various strategies they had implemented, such as incorporating hands-on lab activities, integration of Python coding with Qiskit, and including project-based learning experiences. Furthermore, their reflections on mentorship and advising students emphasized the importance of recognizing students’ prior preparation, providing targeted resources, and supportive learning environments. Our findings are meant to provide guidance for educators looking to implement effective QISE educational strategies that address the changing landscape of quantum information revolution.
In recent years, quantum computing has gained strong traction on the global stage. Pioneering developments in quantum engineering, algorithms and software reinforce the view that quantum computation will eventually catalyze transformative technological advancements across diverse sectors. In anticipation of the future impact of quantum computing, many governments, universities and tech organizations have invested heavily into advancing quantum science, boosting quantum readiness, and building a diverse, talented workforce through quantum education initiatives. Specialized university programs, public awareness campaigns and STEM outreach activities all serve a critical function in fostering a deeper understanding of quantum physics and quantum technologies among non-experts. At the level of high school, a major vision is for these initiatives to reshape the teaching of 20th century physics in STEM classrooms, and inspire the future generation of quantum scientists and professionals. In the current paper, we are presenting the materials we have created for an outreach workshop introducing quantum computing to high school students in an approachable and engaging way. Intro2QC is an exploration of quantum computing's relevance to solving real-world challenges by relating how the unintuitive behaviours of quantum systems can be useful in providing computational advantage. The workshop materials include an online interactive quantum programming tutorial hosted on the Intro2QC website, along with the full lesson plan for STEM instructors and the presentation slides available on the Github repository. This single-session 90-minute workshop has been delivered to approximately 160 students in multiple school groups from Grades 9-12 in British Columbia Canada in the highlight of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.
Quantum Information Science (QIS) is an interdisciplinary field involving mathematics, computer science, and physics. Appealing aspects include an abundance of accessible open problems, active interest and support from government and industry, and an energetic, open, and collaborative international research culture. We describe our student–faculty joint work in QIS that has led to many student co-authored papers in research journals. We address program structure and funding, and describe the work performed by our students.
The commercial and scientific momentum behind quantum computing is accelerating rapidly, yet a critical gap remains between theoretical promise and practical implementation. This talk bridges that gap through some of the hands-on projects spanning quantum simulation and combinatorial optimization, implemented on real quantum software frameworks including Intel Quantum SDK, Eviden myQLM, PennyLane, and Qiskit.We begin by motivating the two most tractable near-term application domains - simulation and optimization, through current industry trends, before examining concrete implementations: a GAN-accelerated surrogate simulator for neutrino interactions in the INO-ICAL particle physics detector; a quantum-accelerated Quantum Monte Carlo workflow for correlated electron systems, developed in collaboration with Intel and presented at ISC 2025; a QAOA-based solution to the flight-gate assignment problem, developed in industry collaboration with Atos-Eviden; and a hardware-aware Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE).The talk concludes with honest lessons from implementing these algorithms on real platforms, the theory-hardware gap, and why hybrid classical-quantum workflows remain the practical frontier. Attendees will leave with a grounded understanding of where quantum advantage is being engineered today, and what it actually takes to get there
Quantum computing can be explored and understood today without owning a quantum computer. Classical emulation provides a cost-effective, accessible, and pedagogical bridge between traditional HPC and the quantum future. By developing algorithms and skills through open-source simulators, 28researchers and engineers can prepare for the quantum advantage era while contributing to the refinement of quantum algorithms and hybrid computing models.The development of this talk and demonstrations draws inspiration from the open-source quantum software community, in particular contributors to Qiskit, Cirq, and Quantum++. Their work has been instrumental in democratizing access to quantum experimentation and education.ABOUT THE AUTHORJordi Blasco Pallares is a computational physicist from the University of Barcelona with over two decades of experience in HPC. His career has spanned multiple national-level supercomputing centers and international research institutions, where he has architected, optimized, and managed large-scale computing systems supporting scientific and industrial innovation. As Co-Founder and Director of Do IT Now - New Zealand (formerly HPCNow!) Jordi leads strategic consulting and solution design across the APAC region and the West Coast of the USA. His work focuses on the development and deployment of advanced HPC and AI infrastructures. He has played a key role in enabling research and engineering teams to achieve peak computational efficiency through performance tuning, benchmarking, and automation.Marco De La Pierre is a Computational Scientist at Do IT Now, a global HPC services and consulting company. Building on a background in computational materials science and on 15 years of experience in High-Performance Computing, he enjoys investigating new software technologies to design and deploy HPC solutions that facilitate user experience and productivity. Active across various aspects of applications and user support, his interests include workflow automation, reproducibility and portability, scientific software stack management, and user training. -----For more information about the eResearch NZ / eRangahau Aotearoa conference, visit: https://eresearchnz.co.nz/