On Sept. 28 and 29, the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) — a partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Maryland — will convene a workshop on Quantum Information Science in Computer and Natural Sciences at the Marriott Inn and Conference Center in College Park, MD. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in connection with its recent interdisciplinary faculty program in quantum information science, this workshop is part of a broader effort to respond to the January 2009 National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) report on “A Federal Vision for Quantum Information Science.”

We are interested in bringing the computer science and mathematics community to look more closely at questions related to the Power of Quantum Information: What is the true power of a general purpose quantum computer, what problems does it allow us to compute efficiently, and what does it teach us about nature?

According to workshop co-organizers Carl Williams, coordinator of NIST’s Quantum Information Program, and Umesh Vazirani, Roger A. Strauch Professor of EECS at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Quantum Information & Computation Center, a key goal for the workshop is to promote, among computer scientists and other scientists not currently involved in quantum information, the recent NSF solicitation (following the link):

In support of their solicitation we have put together a workshop consisting of a broad group of individuals that cover the pressing issues in QI theory including complexity, architectures, algorithms, quantum control, and quantum simulation to name a few areas and then added a few experimental efforts in demonstrations of key components necessary to build the technology. We want to provide an overview of exciting new results, of directions of research, and of the importance QIS may have to especially computer scientists and mathematicians.

 

We are hoping to attract tenured faculty interested in potentially doing a sabbatical to either initiate or strengthen their QIS research program. Individuals from many of the larger QIS programs around the US will be presenting at the workshop so curious computer scientists can have a chance to engage with a broad spectrum of active researchers.

The workshop will bring together about 65 participants, and some travel support is available:

The workshop sponsors have provided funds to support a limited number of attendees, so any tenured faculty who is interested but requires travel support can send a request to Kate Oaks, (301) 405-1300, koaks@umd.edu.

For more details, check out the workshop website.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)