Control Your Quantum Future

Harrison Ball PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

At Q-CTRL, Harrison researches and models ways in which quantum physics can be applied to emerging industries.

Harrison completed his PhD in physics at The University of Sydney, where his research on reducing sources of quantum decoherence advanced a range of theoretical results and their experimental validation. His background as an experimental physicist now helps him ensure that these ideas can be made accessible through intuitive software.

Harrison is the author of many peer-reviewed articles and has presented his research at conferences such as the American Physical Society March Meeting and the ARC Center of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems Annual Workshop.

Prof. Michael Biercuk PhD

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Michael is Professor of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technology at The University of Sydney where he leads a team working to develop advanced technology powered by quantum physics. Out of this research, Michael saw a gap in the market for a company which made this knowledge available outside of the lab. Michael is also Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems.

Michael completed his Masters and PhD at Harvard University. After university, he held a research fellowship in the Ion Storage Group at NIST Boulder under the supervision of 2012 Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr. David Wineland. He has also worked as a consultant to DARPA, helping steer government investments in quantum information and next-generation computer architectures.

As one of the world’s leading authorities on quantum physics and technology, Michael is a regular contributor to both the technical literature and the popular press. He is a TEDx speaking alumnus and winner of the 2015 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher.

Jaryd Carolin

Principal Front-end Consultant

As the Principal of Q-CTRL’s Front-end Engineering team, it’s Jaryd’s role to drive best-practice architectural and development practices in order to provide Q-CTRL customers with an intuitive way to interact with our products.

Jaryd has had a general interest in quantum mechanics for many years, so Q-CTRL was a natural fit with his academic interests.

With a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Jaryd brings to the team his vast experience in business analysis, technical development and systems architecture across both the financial services and startup sectors in Australia and overseas.

Andre Carvalho PhD

Principal Quantum Control Engineer

Andre Carvalho is a Principal Quantum Control Engineer at Q-CTRL.

He completed his PhD at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro before joining the Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden as a postdoctoral fellow. He then spent more than a decade as a researcher at the Australian National University, where he worked across disciplines, bringing together expertise from physicists and engineers to develop control solutions for quantum technology problems. He has also worked as a senior research fellow at Griffith University.

Andre has a vast international experience and is widely recognised for his contributions to the field of quantum control.

Rajib Chakravorty PhD

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Rajib uses his expertise in Machine Learning to build efficient characterization and control optimization tools for quantum hardware. He completed his PhD in Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney and has previously held research positions at IBM and NICTA (National ICT Australia), where he was involved in developing VisTarsier - an assistive software toolset used by neuro-radiologists to assess the progression of multiple-sclerosis.

Primarily driven by curiosity, Rajib believes quantum computing today is at a similar stage as classical computing was in the 1940s, and sees his role at Q-CTRL as an opportunity to contribute to something “truly futuristic”.

Kevin Chee

Head of Product

It’s Kevin’s job to build products that customers love.

Having had an interest in quantum mechanics since his days at Melbourne’s Monash University - where he completed a Bachelor of Business, a Bachelor of Computing and a Bachelor of Technology - Kevin was surprised to see the evolution into quantum computing happening so quickly and jumped at the opportunity to be involved in the development of quantum technology without the need for a PhD!

With more than 10 years experience working up and down the entire product development stack in both Lean and Agile software development environments and across a variety of industry verticals, Kevin holds both Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) qualifications from the Scrum Alliance.

Jiayin Chen

Junior Quantum Control Engineer

Jiayin is part of our Quantum Control Engineering Team, working to create new control solutions for companies developing new quantum technologies. Whilst studying at ANU, Jiayin designed and implemented a deep learning algorithm for controlling non-linear quantum systems. She is currently completing her PhD at UNSW Sydney.

Previously, Jiayin has worked as a summer scholar at Data61 CSIRO, where her work on solving refugee allocation was published in the AAMAS 2018. She has also designed and implemented active learning algorithms to reduce time and cost for mineral exploration in Australia. Following her most recent internship, Jiayin won first prize in the 2018 Data61 Summer Scholars Data-driven Art Hackathon.

Andrew Dinihan

Senior Front-end Engineer

It’s Andrew’s job to build out the various facets of Q-CTRL’s front-end applications in order to ensure they have a robust foundation to maximize their quality and longevity.

Following his interest in the emerging field of quantum technology, Andrew jumped at the chance to join the Q-CTRL team and to make his mark on the exciting and cutting-edge field of quantum control.

With a Bachelor of Medicine from The University of Newcastle, a Bachelor of Computer Science from The University of Sydney and experience in both start-ups and the enterprise, Andrew brings with him a diverse background and a wide exposure to a range of technologies - as well as a passion for building things from the ground up.

Claire Edmunds

Quantum Control Engineer

At Q-CTRL, Claire studies how we can extend quantum control techniques, initially demonstrated on trapped ions, to other quantum platforms such as superconducting qubits. She is also working on control protocols to improve the performance of two-qubit operations.

Claire is currently completing her PhD at The University of Sydney, where she placed first in both her undergraduate and honours degrees, and won the university medal for her work on experimental quantum control.

Virginia Frey

Quantum Control Engineer

Virginia chose to study physics as her undergraduate degree because she wanted to understand how the world is held together. Now, driven by a constant curiosity in the potential of quantum technology, Virginia is currently completing her PhD at The University of Sydney. She has published a series of papers on the potential for control engineering to benefit quantum systems in globally leading research journals.

At Q-CTRL, Virginia combines her research in quantum physics with software techniques to improve quantum systems.

Stephen Gore

Lead DevOps Engineer

It’s Stephen’s job to define and implement Q-CTRL’s DevOps best-practices in order to ensure the continued performance, availability, reliability, scalability and security of our technical infrastructure, systems and services.

Previously, Stephen worked as an Engineering Manager with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he enjoyed engineering CI/CD systems, implementing solutions to detect and mitigate security risks, and helped contribute to the development of an enterprise deployment and hosting platform (PaaS).

Stephen has an Honours Degree in Science and Arts from The University of Sydney, a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Technology Sydney, and is a Google Cloud Platform Developer and Authorized Trainer.

Rob Harkness

Junior Front-end Engineer

Rob is a web developer with over 10 years experience across a range of technical domains - including high-demand audio-visual media streaming and networking. At Q-CTRL, Rob is helping to build front-end applications and quantum visualisation tools for our customers. Prior to joining Q-CTRL, Rob worked as a Streaming Media Technician with NASDAQ and is a recent graduate of the Web Development Immersive course at General Assembly.

David Hover PhD

Senior Quantum Control Consultant

David is excited to bring his expertise in superconducting circuits to the Q-CTRL team.

David completed his PhD in experimental quantum physics at the University of Wisconsin, where he fabricated and characterized superconducting devices under the supervision of Robert McDermott. After his PhD he joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he worked in the lab on many facets of superconducting quantum engineering, including quantum limited read-out, noise engineering, and control electronics.

Michael Hush PhD

Lead Quantum Control Engineer

Michael leads the Quantum Control Engineering team at Q-CTRL. He completed his PhD in quantum physics at ANU, where he also won the University Medal for Theoretical Physics. Following his PhD came a research fellowship at the Research School of Engineering at ANU, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nottingham and a research and teaching role in the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra at ADFA.

Michael won the 2017 Young Innovator Award at the Unearthed Hackathon and was a lecturer at UNSW Canberra at ADFA.

Per Liebermann PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

At Q-CTRL, Per contributes to the development of our suite of quantum control software products - including research on quantum control techniques and software integration. He brings deep expertise in both optimal control theory and the physics of superconducting circuits for quantum computing.

Since High School, the spooky world of quantum physics and its mathematical description has fascinated Per and observing quantum phenomena - not only with single electrons or atoms but on larger structures, even within electrical circuits - has been a source of intrigue and one of the reasons he chose to pursue a PhD in physics.

Per completed his PhD at Saarland University under the supervision of Frank Wilhelm where he was part of the team involved in the creation of the EU Quantum Optimal Control Roadmap.

Robert Love

Chief Technology Officer

As the first employee and CTO of Q-CTRL, Robert is responsible for building and leading the software engineering teams, delivering value to customers by ensuring scientific R&D translates to product development, and overseeing ongoing business operations.

Previously, he worked as Chief Technology Officer for the Innovation & Digital Ventures group at PwC Australia and was General Manager of Product & Engineering at Australia’s pre-eminent startup incubator - Pollenizer. He was also the Senior Developer for Taste.com.au, which went on to become the #1 recipe website in Australia and #2 in the world.

Robert is an invited expert for the W3C HTML Working Group, a Member of the Australian Web Industry Association and Web Standards Group and a Certified Scrum Master.

Dennis Lucarelli PhD

Principal Quantum Control Consultant

Dennis Lucarelli studied control theory at Washington University in St. Louis and obtained his doctorate in 2002. Under the supervision of quantum control pioneer, Prof. T.J. Tarn, he applied methods from robotics to establish conditions for controllability of quantum dynamical systems and to construct novel entangling gates.

He has over 15 years experience as a research engineer at JHU/APL where he developed solutions across several problem domains using methods from machine learning, signal processing and autonomous systems. With deep roots in classical and quantum control theory, at Q-CTRL he will work to solve some of the hardest problems facing quantum device makers.

Damien Metcalf

Head of Design

Damien ensures that the Q-CTRL experience is not only easy and intuitive, but also delightful to use. From the brand to the software, every part of Q-CTRL has Damien’s designer touch. With over 10 years experience across branding, UX/UI design, full-stack development and building enterprise-level systems, Damien likes to find ways to make complex things simple.

Kevin Nguyen

Lead Back-end Engineer

With 13 years of full-stack development experience, Kevin marries the research of our Quantum Control Engineering team with software to create the Q-CTRL platform. He brings with him deep experience in startup development and innovation thanks to his role at PwC as Lead Developer within the Innovation & Digital Ventures group and as a Platform Engineer with Pollenizer.

Viktor Perunicic PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

At Q-CTRL, Viktor develops bespoke quantum computing and quantum sensing solutions for Q-CTRL’s customers in a wide range of industries.

Motivated by the challenge of understanding complicated systems - whether in society or in science - and driven by a love of technology and the transformative power of turning the deeply perplexing into practical solutions - Viktor was naturally drawn to quantum.

Based on presently available qubit technology, Viktor has developed and patented a method to miniaturize Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology onto a chip for the purpose of imaging the 3D atomic structure of individual proteins in native cellular environments.

Viktor completed his PhD at The University of Melbourne under the supervision of ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor Lloyd Hollenberg, and has worked at the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) - specialising in applications of quantum control in biotech.

Viktor has served on the board of the The Royal Society of Victoria for the past three years, he is the author of a number of high-impact publications and is an invited speaker at conferences both nationally and internationally.

Harry Slatyer PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

At Q-CTRL, it’s Harry’s job to leverage his knowledge of control theory, machine learning and quantum physics to develop products that allow customers to understand and control their quantum systems.

Harry completed his PhD at The Australian National University, where he focussed on optimizing quantum optical systems under the supervision of Professor Ping Koy Lam.

Prior to Q-CTRL, Harry was as a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he worked on Google Maps for Android Automotive and Wear OS.

Marcus Strom

Media Consultant

Marcus lets the world know about all the great work going on at Q-CTRL.

Previously, he was the Science Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, however, the lure of directly helping tell the story of quantum tech was so great that he made the jump to The University of Sydney Nano Institute where he holds the concurrent role of Media Adviser.

Marcus is an award-winning journalist, was a Eureka Prize finalist for Science Journalism in 2017 and a Walkley Award finalist in 2015 - Australia’s pre-eminent journalism awards. He was selected to attend the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in 2017 where the hot topic was quantum computing and, in 2016, he won an award for a video on fair-allocation algorithms at The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Stefano Tabacco

Senior Back-end Engineer

As a Senior Back-end Engineer, It’s Stefano’s job to develop the suite of back-end services and integrations that help drive the delivery of Q-CTRL’s suite of quantum control products.

Working within the visual effects and animation industry across Australia, Europe and Asia for over 15 years, Stefano was part of the team that won the Academy Award in 2014 for Best Visual Effects for the movie “Gravity”. However, Stefano felt the need for new challenges and to explore new realities. Q-CTRL was able to offer this very opportunity.

Assoc. Prof. Rebing Wu PhD

Scientific Collaborator

Rebing completed his PhD in Control Science and Engineering in 2004 at Tsinghua University in China, following which he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University from 2005 to 2008. He is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University. His major research interest is quantum optimal control theory and its experimental applications.

Rebing partners with Q-CTRL to jointly explore fundamental questions on the limits and opportunities for robust quantum control in quantum computing.

Yashar Zolmajdi

Front-end Engineer

As a Front-end Engineer, it’s Yashar’s job to contribute to the development of QCTRL’s suite of cutting-edge front-end applications.

With a Master of Information and Communications Technology from Western Sydney University specializing in web and mobile computing, Yashar brings a wealth of experience in both full-stack web and mobile application development and system analysis and design.