UMass Boston

A robust Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) program will be established on the UMass Boston campus with the support of a five-year $5 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Robin Côté, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) and professor of physics, is the principal investigator for the project, Expand QUantum Information Programs at UMass Boston (EQUIP-UMB). The EQUIP-UMB team is comprised of faculty from UMass Boston, Harvard, and MIT, with $4,463,473 of the award designated for UMass Boston and a combined $536,527 for the MIT and Harvard collaborators. 

The funding for EQUIP-UMB comes from the NSF program Expanding Capacity in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (ExpandQISE). ExpandQISE invests in a diversified research and education portfolio to support scientific and engineering breakthroughs and U.S. QISE workforce development.

EQUIP-UMB has a three-pronged approach for building out the UMass Boston QISE program. First, in collaboration with well-established programs at Harvard and MIT, EQUIP-UMB will deliver high-quality research in three focus areas: Quantum Fundamentals, Quantum Metrology and Control, and Co-Design and Quantum Systems. Second, the program will seed fund three new tenure-track positions—two experimentalists (Physics and Engineering) and one theorist (any discipline). Third, a workforce development infrastructure will be put in place to offer training opportunities within the program and internships with industry partners.

“This NSF award positions UMass Boston to offer tremendous multi-disciplinary research and training opportunities in quantum science and engineering to our students. Participating in our QISE program will create pathways for our students to join areas of the workforce in which the demand for skilled scientists and engineers exceeds the talent currently available,” Côté said.

Côté is joined on the project by UMass Boston faculty: Associate Professor of Engineering Matthew Bell; Assistant Professor of Physics Olga Goulko; Assistant Professor of Physics Akira Sone; and Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs. Additional collaborators include Mikhail Lukin, co-director of the Quantum Science and Engineering Initiative and professor of physics at Harvard University and Paola Cappellaro, professor of physics and of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. Additional collaborators from Harvard, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, MIT, and Università degli Studi Federico II (Italy) will participate in the project.

Companies collaborating on the project include Atlantic Quantum, Millimeter Wave Systems, QuEra, Quantum Microwave, and Riverlane Ltd.