My Journey into Quantum

Aside

• I wanted to write something after finally making some progress this year towards that goal. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m aware I still have a long way to go. But here goes..

2021

• After being told by a professor (now my advisor) that if I wanted to take cryptography class, I should do it now because it’s offered every other year, I took a mathematical cryptography class. There was some quantum stuff covered, as in “how does it work, foundational algorithms, some exercises in Qiskit”. Over that summer, there was a summer workshop held by IBM on Qiskit, and I did that, but there was a lot of context that was missing. Back then, I also heard that it was a fairly closed field, unless one either got lucky, was at the “right” school, etc. This was during the quarantine, so I followed the route of cryptography and Mathematics, learning about Information Theory, even proposing a class in information theory (because none was offered, even though a professor had taught it in the past!) at my own institution on the topic, which has since run for two years now. I first had taken a class at Stanford with Professor Tse during the pandemic, which I was given access to because of my long involvement with an Information theory group (from 2016; remember my background is hardware/electronics/video stuff so compression/CMOS chips were my jam back then).
• Because my advisor does a specific type of cryptography related to quantum, I tried to get into a workshop related to this, and had to bother the organizers three times and even almost missed the registration (because after expressing wanting to take part, they still neglected to tell me when registration had opened), but was able to take the workshop. I was very frustrated, thinking it might have been a personal sleight that no one wanted me in that community (honestly, when this happens, it may just be the case that people get busy, and especially if you’re not in their immediate circle, sometimes you just don’t get access to the information, such as “hey, we just opened registration”!).

2022

• I continued my cryptography journey, but my intuition about why this cryptography was safe from quantum made me ask a lot of questions constantly. Still learning, I engaged myself in foundational Mathematics, which interestingly led to another project with another Maths professor, having taken about 5 of their classes. Over the summer, I also participated in some Blockchain research that had relevance to cryptography and my Graph Theory class, which was really interesting and cool! I applied for some opportunities to learn about quantum, and was involved in a book club and other groups based in California. We continued a second book on Quantum Mechanics after we completed the first Intro to Quantum Computing, and then we made our way through the “Bible” of Quantum Computing. I stuck it out for all of these book clubs, and was invited to continue to join a Quantum Field Theory book club, which I really wanted to get into, but 2023 changed a lot of that expectation. Basically, I thought I could just do the Quantum Field Theory book club, but things actually started happening for me, and I got put on some projects and other such opportunities, so that was actually a bit of a success story.

2023

• This was my first real year of access to knowledge. It began with my being rejected from a semester-long opportunity (which turned out to be a win because I ended up getting into a class from one of the persons who rejected me! haha), but getting into two summer schools. It was so unexpected that I missed the second invitation until a day or two before the workshop started (thankfully it was virtual). But I did it; I can say I went to the Quantum Computing Summer school and had peers who work in the area that I met there and continue to meet. I also did the hack where a couple days before the end of the summer school, I asked “so, what’s everyone up to next?” and this helped me gain context and information for what other opportunities I might want to check out.
• I also learned that I was not alone in this search for access; I made friends with a group of amazing women in Quantum and we share opportunities and support each other, and I am so thankful for their kindness. It’s made so much of the journey worth it!
• And let me be real; the journey hasn’t been perfect, and I still get rejected for things because in many ways, it is a pretty “closed” group, and I am at a disadvantage because my school doesn’t really have a class on the topic (in fact, I found out later on that my Maths advisor often has Physics majors sit in on their class to pick up this knowledge!), but, this year I’ve felt very proud of all I’ve been able to accomplish so far. This has included:
  • attending both an in-person and virtual summer camp on Quantum Computing (1 of 50 grad students!)
  • attending a Foundational Algorithms class and a Quantum Computing class, and being invited to participate in another course where we work on projects that lead to a manuscript in Quantum Computing (to be published; 1 of 80 students admitted).
  • student-volunteering at flagship Quantum Computing conference
  • Submitting an Abstract to a flagship Quantum Computing conference (accepted to QIP 2024!)
  • Receiving an invitation (with funding) to be a Visiting Researcher at a Maths Institute for a specific workshop and bootcamp in Quantum (in 2024)!
  • Submitting a proposal for funding (tbd 2024, but I got an interview!)
  • Getting 1 of 5 Fellowships to attend a Quantum Symposium.
  • Joining a group and working on writings and learnings about Quantum Resource Estimation, a new, niche subfield.
  • Being Invited to and participating in a Quantum Hackathon
  • Participating and completing a Quantum Computing Bootcamp (with a perfect score!)
  • Wrangling a group at my lab to start an affiliated project in 2024.
  • Being admitted to a Quantum Computing and Mathematics class outside of my institution (2024). This was a story of persistence. I emailed every two weeks, and heard nothing. I had a meeting with one of my PIs and they told me that the professor probably wouldn’t email back, as they had a similar experience. Being stubborn / persistent, I went home after the meeting and emailed another person at the institution, and they emailed me back immediately and told me I needed permission from the professor to take the class, which was frustrating to hear, but they also said that if I didn’t hear from the professor to email them. So I emailed the professor one more time, and they responded almost immediately and said they were travelling but would admit me to the class! A win!
  • Working on affiliated projects in Maths (that I can tie in to my dissertation!)

In Summary

• I’m at the point now where I interact with the Quantum Computing community daily. This week, I have had people in the area reach out to me to tell me to apply to funding and scholarships, as well as just inform me about things they think I would enjoy. People in the community tell me that they think what I’m doing (in terms of research) is interesting and they support my growth. I’ve felt like I’ve also grown so much as a researcher, in terms of hitting walls and getting better.
• The journey so far has not been without challenges. I want to be clear that I still have little to no credibility in the area, and even though I hear from peers that “it’s a new area”, I still think that in many ways, not having any classes at my institution (except a section of a course in Mathematical cryptography) or access to opportunities at my backdoor theoretically puts me at a huge disadvantage.
• There are professors and workshops and even companies that would not give me a second glance because I do not attend institutions that have formal programmes in this area, and that’s okay. I’m doing the best I can, with the resources I have, and I’m proud of being able to find community in such a short amount of time, and from feedback I’ve gotten that I’m “quite serious” about this area, and seen as someone seriously pursuing work in the area (even though I still see myself very much as learning).
• However, where there have been roadblocks, I’ve also met some peers who see me as one of them, and greet me eagerly at events, and there is some encouragement. A year ago, a Graph Theory professor and I were trying to settle on a problem, and I kept showing them Quantum papers, and they said to me “I know you like this stuff”, and it gave me a bit more courage to continue to keep going, in spite of having little to no access to resources in the area, and constant doors being shut in my face, in favour of other students who had early access because their institution just had more infrastructure and funding in place to accommodate more and earlier learning in the field. But it hasn’t been in vain, and it’s definitely been a journey.

What’s next and do I think Quantum is for everyone?

• I can’t say right now, but I’m definitely looking forward to continuing, and I have friends in this area now. I’m still learning a lot, but this week I was at the point where I attended a class and the instructor thought it might be “too easy” for me, which I don’t think is the case because by virtue of my not having access to materials, I know some stuff, but I have to fill in a lot of gaps, and this is quite common when one is self-learning. However, my win this week was being able to answer all the questions in the live class, which is pretty impressive considering not a single such class is offered at my institution, and I’ve been doing substantial legwork on my own.
• I want to to be clear that learning about quantum computing that is not merely on a superficial level is challenging. So do I think Quantum Computing is for everyone? Honestly, given the state of where things are right now, I would say “No”. It’s still largely dominated (in terms of access) to a particular set of schools, even though it’s gotten better. And it’s still very challenging to get access to the information and to succeed (especially on research projects!) unless you have access to a mentor working in the field. That being said, I think that it’s an area with a lot of wonderful (especially in Pure Mathematics and Distributed Systems!) challenges to explore. A bit of the culture reminds me of the tech lore of “tech is for everyone”, where someone would read a blog about that, learn to code, and then find that it is actually near impossible to get that first gig. Right now, I’d say that Quantum is very much like that, so if you aren’t at one of those institutions that has access to all the shiny tools and fancy people, it’s going to be filled with lots of ups and downs. And you’re also dealing with a new culture coming forth from a legacy-culture that has primarily been very non-inclusive, even going so far as to blatantly even tell those that have been granted admission that they probably will never make a contribution to the area (true story from a peer about their experience in a Quantum Physics department). These are things that the community is still trying to sort out, so if you’re in it for the long haul, patience and understanding of this is required. At the same time, there is the weird intersection with the entrepreneurial side, which is interesting, I guess. This side has intersected heavily with areas like Finance, etc, but I honestly haven’t interacted especially with it yet; my focus has typically been on the science research / grad school student side. I’ve spent several hours trying to write out answers to questions, translating notation, programming circuits, and I still hit roadblocks constantly. But I’m willing to stick with it, along with my current paths in Mathematics. My intent is to continue to work and publish in this area, as it intersects with my other interests (mathematical cryptography, Number Theory and Graph Theory).

And that’s it