Control Your
Quantum Future

Mirko Amico PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

It is Mirko’s job to study and model physical systems in the framework of quantum mechanics to provide a deeper understanding of the systems’ dynamical behavior. This knowledge of the physics of the system allows us to develop improved control solutions to manipulate its state with higher precision.

In his undergraduate years, Mirko became familiar with quantum theory and developed an interest towards the deep, almost philosophical, questions that can be addressed with the tools provided by physics. This led him to study string theory and supergravity in his Masters degree, focusing on topics such as the nature of space-time and the fundamental building blocks of reality.

For his Ph. D., Mirko chose to remain close to the theoretical aspects of quantum theory - applied to current technologies as he steered in a more practical direction.

While completing his Ph. D., Mirko held many physics lab and lecture classes for undergraduate students at the City University of New York. He is also very enthusiastic about quantum computing; he is actively involved in the quantum community by contributing to open source projects, giving talks and tutorials.

Leonardo Andreta de Castro PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

As a Senior Quantum Control Engineer, it is Leo’s job to develop strategies to reduce errors and create more robust gates in quantum computing devices.

Leo is a theoretical physicist, and his research has always focused on topics of quantum mechanics that are close to quantum computing. His undergraduate research in Brazil was about dynamical decoupling and quantum error correction.

In the following years, during his masters’ and PhD in Brazil, his research on quantum mechanics continued to touch on aspects of quantum information, in a mostly theoretical sense. Leo had more contact with applied research in actual quantum computing devices after he went to Duke to work as a postdoc.

Leo has a PhD in Physics from the University of São Paulo in where he researched quantum mechanics on the interface between foundations of physics and quantum information. Prior to Q-CTRL, he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University where he researched quantum control and quantum error correction.

Harrison Ball PhD

Lead Quantum Research Scientist

Harrison is Head of Research at Q-CTRL. He works with a team of physicists to model quantum systems used in emerging industries, and develop novel control solutions for improving their performance.

He 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 has authored many peer-reviewed articles in the field and presented this research at a variety of conferences around the world.

Ryan Barker

Senior Back-end Engineer

As a Senior Back-end Engineer, It’s Ryan’s job to produce easy-to-use, standards-compliant and efficient APIs and related back-end services.

Prior to Q-CTRL, Ryan spent over 12 years at Appen, where he contributed to the creation of software for the provision and improvement of data used for the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence products used by Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google and Amazon. Ready for a new challenge, the emerging quantum field seemed like the obvious next step.

Yuval Baum PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

Already as a young physics bachelor, Yuval was fascinated with Quantum mechanics and quickly decided to opt in for a PhD as the logical next step.

During his PhD at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, Yuval worked on different aspects of quantum physics such as classification of topological phases and transport properties of quantum devices - receiving the Rothschild Fellowship Prize for his reasearch efforts.

After his PhD, Yuval became an IQIM (Institute for Quantum Information and Matter) fellow at Caltech, where he studied the behavior of complex quantum many-body-systems. He closely studied different control schemes allowing us to use these systems in future application of quantum devices/computers.

Yuval is also interested in employing state-of-the-art machine learning and statistical inference techniques in order to predict, understand and optimize the behavior of complex and noisy systems.

Albert Benseny Cases

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

As a Senior Quantum Control Engineer, it is Albert’s job to find the best way to drive the dynamics inside quantum machines so that they behave exactly as we want them to.

Albert has a MSc in Photonics (Interuniversity program involving four universities/research centres around Barcelona: UAB, UB, UPC and ICFO) and a PhD in Physics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (under the supervision of Prof. Jordi Mompart).

Albert was lucky enough that when studying physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the local research groups taught courses in quantum optics and quantum information, which spurred his interest. He learned everything he could and eventually joined the quantum and atom optics group as an undergraduate with a grant to carry out a small research project. He tinkered a bit with techniques to manipulate ultracold atoms, and got hooked! He stayed in the group for his PhD, studying how to make the atoms do whatever we needed them to do, but also trying to understand some of the quantum quirkiness going on.

After finishing his PhD, Albert was a postdoc for four years in Japan (at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) and a year in Denmark (at Aarhus University) - where he worked on a wide variety of techniques to manipulate quantum systems.

Albert enjoys doing science outreach and has taught quantum courses for a general audience. He also participated in physics exhibits and programming workshops for children on top of beig an accomplished writer - having published 20 peer-reviewed articles and two book chapters.

Christopher Bentley PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

As a Senior Quantum Control Engineer, it is Chris’s job to develop quantum control software to explore and optimise quantum systems, building on his experience in quantum physics and machine learning.

From the outset of his studies in quantum mechanics, Chris enjoyed its conceptual challenges and delighted in understanding the fine workings of the universe. He completed his undergraduate and Honours studies at the ANU and was awarded the University Medal for Physics. He then continued at the ANU for his PhD, where he worked on the design and optimisation of gates for trapped-ion quantum computers, and explored how to leverage rather than suffer from additional environmental interactions.

After postdoctoral studies in Dresden at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, his interest in machine learning took him to Data61 and the Transport Analytics group, where he developed his data science and machine learning expertise and led the AI in Transport team. Chris returned to the quantum field when the opportunity to combine his interests and skills arose at Q-Ctrl.

Tabish Bidiwale

Graduate Back-end Engineer

As a Graduate Back-end Engineer, it is Tabish’s job to help develop, test, and maintain the back-end services and associated API’s for Q-Ctrl’s products.

Tabish had not worked in the Quantum industry prior to Q-CTRL, but is still highly excited about the field itself. As teenager, he was very interested in physics and as such in Quantum Mechanics as well - watching and reading the Feynman lectures out of curiosity. His focus then shifted more towards classical computers and programming, but still kept a keen interest in Quantum technology.

Tabish recently completed a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Sydney. Now joining Q-CTRL, Tabish looks forward to seeing the advancements of the industry coming in the future years.

Prof. Michael J. 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.

André Carvalho PhD

Lead Quantum Business Development 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.

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.

Michael Conroy

Senior Product Manager

Michael is a Senior Product Manager at Q-CTRL. He helps define and deliver the right product for our customers.

He first heard about quantum computing while doing his Bachelors of Computer Science degree at University of Newcastle. He kept an eye on the field and nurtured his love of science and technology while a reporter for Wired Magazine in London, and maintained a keen interest as the field developed.

He then spent nearly a decade in Adtech, first as Head of Insight and Innovation leading a team of data scientists (where they delivered award-winning projects for some of the world’s largest brands including Sony, Activision and The BBC), and later as a Technical Product Lead.

More recently and prior to Q-CTRL, Mick was working as a Product Manager at CSIRO’s Data61 where he relaunched the Ribit platform, which has subsequently provided the critical first job for thousands of science and technology students in Australia.

Luigi Cristofolini

Senior Back-end Engineer

As a Senior Back-end Engineer, It’s Luigi’s job to collaborate with all teams to develop the back-end capabilities for Q-CTRL’s product suite.

Prior to Q-CTRL, Luigi spent four years at Neo Networks and, despite being a Software Engineer, he has always had a strong interest in physics. Luigi is amazed by the quantum domain and is excited to help Q-CTRL build the future of quantum computing.

Luigi has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from the University of the Alto Vale do Itajaí and a Post Graduate degree in Computer Software Engineering from Santa Catarina State University.

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.

Christopher Farrenden

DevOps Engineer

Chris is responsible for the security and stability of cloud infrastructure by using his knowledge to help both operations and development teams to get the best out of the cloud and to always be looking at new ways to implement cloud best practices.

Chris was drawn towards the quantum industry due to his genuine interest in science and technology. Prior to Q-CTRL, he played a key role in many Kubernetes migration projects and worked on multiple cloud cost optimisation initiatives during his time at Domain and Bulletproof.

He holds a Bachelor of Computer Science at the University of New England as well as multiple AWS Certifications.

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

Front-end Consultant

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 graduate of the Web Development Immersive course at General Assembly.

Sean Howell

Lead Quantum Integration & US Lead

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, it is Sean’s job to research, develop, and implement machine learning, quantum control and noise mitigation techniques…and anything else that might be involved in building a quantum computing company.

Sean has been interested in quantum computing since he was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland. Having spent much of his career working at the intersection of software, machine learning and applied physics, quantum technology / quantum control seemed like the ideal field in which to combine these interests while contributing to a truly novel technology.

The opportunity to contribute to quantum computing at this early, but extremely exciting and critical stage in its commercial development is exactly the sort of effort he became a scientist and engineer to be a part of.

Sean has over a decade of experience in academic, industrial, and government R&D. He studied mathematics at the University of Maryland (BS).

He has worked on applications of machine learning to a variety of domains, including: earth and space science and instrument noise mitigation at NASA, quantitative finance at a hedge fund / asset manager, defense programs sponsored by DARPA, IARPA, AFRL, NRL, and ONR, and robotics for applications spanning underwater exploration to entertainment.

Michael Hush PhD

Head of Quantum Science and Engineering

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.

Jennifer Kreutzer

Head of Marketing

It’s Jennifer’s job to define and implement the global marketing strategy for Q-CTRL, putting in place the marketing foundations to allow Q-CTRL to grow across multiple industries, channels and segments.

Having been responsible for IT marketing for over 15 years, the opportunity to work in the quantum domain presented itself as the new challenge Jennifer was after.

Prior to joining Q-CTRL, Jennifer held senior positions at both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Red Hat, and was responsible for creating the first global digital marketing campaign for Training and Certification at AWS - attracting hundreds of thousands of subscribers within a few short months.

Li Li PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

As a Senior Quantum Control Engineer, it is Li’s job to develop control solutions for various quantum systems with his knowledge in quantum mechanics and control theory; improving algorithm performance with machine learning and optimization techniques.

Li began his journey in quantum science as an experimentalist in a research group at USTC focusing on quantum optics, where he had successfully simulated a controllable quantum non-Markovian system with linear optics.

He completed his PhD at Griffith University, his research mainly focusing on the dynamics of open quantum systems and quantum feedback control.

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.

Christina Maresca

Product Designer

As a Product Designer, it is Christina’s job to take the complex concepts of quantum technology, and turn them into simple, intuitive, user-centric flows and interfaces.

Christina is excited and intrigued by the emerging industry of quantum technology, and feels it has the potential to make a positive impact on the world. She is motivated by the pivotal role design will play in allowing people to comprehend this ambiguous field.

Prior to Q-CTRL, Christina completed a Bachelor of Graphic Design from the University of Canberra and graduated with Chancellor’s Commendation. She then worked within the design industry for over seven years, helping new brands and start-ups develop an online presence, whilst improving their user experience. Most recently, she has been designing and developing digital learning solutions for some of Australia’s biggest household names.

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.

Julio Rodriguez

Scrum Master

As a Scrum Master, Julio’s role is to create the context for teams to do their best work through Agile values and the Scrum framework.

While not coming from a quantum background, Julio is fascinated by the industry and its potential to disrupt computer science. He looks forward to be part o Q-CRTL’s journey in creating solutions for the future.

With over a decade of experience as a Business Analyst and Scrum Master, Julio is a passionate Agilist. He is a Certified Scrum Master (Scrum Alliance) and has worked across Fortune 100 companies as well as successful Australian start-ups. He was actively involved in agile transformations at Red Hat and Hotels Combined.

Harry Slatyer PhD

Lead Quantum Product 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 focused 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 technology 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.

Felix Thomsen

Graduate Quantum Control Engineer

As a Graduate Quantum Control Engineering, it is Felix’s job to support the Quantum Engineering team by demonstrating the advantage of using quantum control techniques on publicly available quantum computing platforms.

Felix loved the quantum mechanics classes he took during his Physics and Engineering undergraduate studies. After attending a lecture on quantum computing while on exchange at the University of Pennsylvania, he decided to complete his Honours thesis in the Quantum Theory Group upon returning to Sydney.

Quantum Computing has been an exciting journey for him, and he is planning to pursue a PhD in the field later in 2020.

Camille Vachon

Manager - People and Talent

Camille is responsible for managing Q-CTRL’s People and Talent functions - attracting and retaining outstanding talent and establishing Q-CTRL as an employer of choice and a great place to work.

Camille found the quantum world highly intriguing due to its huge and largely unknown and untapped potential. Q-CTRL piqued her curiosity instantly and she is truly excited to work with a technology and a company that could completely disrupt the 21st Century.

Prior to joining Q-CTRL, Camille had been making her mark in the technology recruitment industry with her drive, energy and market knowledge. As a consultant, she has worked with a wide range of clients - from emerging startups to large consulting firms. Camille is also the organizer of multiple technology Meetups across Sydney, Australia.

Oliver Ye

Graduate Back-end Engineer

As a Graduate Back-end Engineer, it is Oliver’s job to build and maintain Q-CTRL’s backend server and implement REST API to expose the core data to our clients.

After reading The Three-Body Problem, Oliver quickly developed a strong interest towards emerging technologies and the Quantum Industry. He then completed a dual Bachelor of Commerce and Computer Science at UNSW.

Prior to Q-CTRL, Oliver interned with Medical Director and MediusHealth - where he collaborated with Senior Developers to maintain and implement the backend servers.

Junkai Zeng PhD

Senior Quantum Control Engineer

As a Senior Quantum Control Engineer, it’s Junkai’s job to develop quantum control solutions for various physical systems that make quantum computing devices more robust and noise-resistant.

Quantum information technology has been fascinating Junkai since he first got introduced to this concept in college. After having spent a great time doing a summer research internship at IQC, University of Waterloo - where he learned about the basic concepts and techniques in quantum computing - Junkai decided to keep studying and working in this field. He believes there is no better time than now to jump into this new industry and is excited to be part of it.

Junkai earned his PhD in physics from Virginia Tech, where he worked on designing optimal noise-resistant quantum gates and first-authored 3 articles. He is also a data science and machine learning enthusiast. He holds a data analytics certificate, also from Virginia Tech.

When not busy doing research, Junkai is a also an electronic music producer.

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.