Since March 2019 I am an expert for quantum computing at Covestro.
In October 2018 I moved to the University of Cologne and officially started working with Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. in Toronto. Until September 2018, I was at ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona with Antonio Acín and Maciej Lewenstein, where I won both an ICFOnest+ and a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (NIMBqUS). Before that, I was on a joint postdoctoral research position at ICFO with the MPQ - Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching.
I finished my Ph.D. in theoretical physics in the Quantum Information Theory group of Jens Eisert at Freie Universität Berlin in July 2014.
My thesis was supported by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
Before that, I worked at the Universität Potsdam until October 2011, was a visiting student with Andreas Winter at the University of Bristol until September 2010, and completed my master's thesis at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in April 2010.
Since 2016 I am a founder and member of the Executive Board of Quantum - the open journal for quantum science.
I am on of the developers of PennyLane, a library for the optimization of variational quantum circuits and quantum machine learning with automatic differentiation and a contributer to the quantum computing simulators StrawberryFields and ProjectQ.
My main research interests are:
- Quantum computation, technologies, and information theory: I am interested in various aspects of quantum computing, quantum error correction, complexity theory and quantum speedups (for example for machine learning), quantum annealing, as well as quantum enhanced metrology.
- Quantum software and machine learning: Together with the quantum computing startup Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., I am working on software for the simulation of quantum computers, and quantum machine learning.
- Certification of quantum devices: As a fully fledged, scalable, and error-correcting quantum computer is still out of reach, the certification of less powerful machines (quantum simulators and samplers) that perform some provably hard task is crucial. I am particularly interested in the sample complexity of certification and average case complexity.
- Statistical and many-body physics: I am fascinated by the fundamental questions concerning the interplay of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, their similarities and their apparent incompatibility. I am intrigued by the long standing question to which extent the methods of statistical physics can be justified from the microscopic theory of quantum mechanics. How, why, and in which sense do quantum many body systems equilibrate? I have worked on the role of disorder and integrability for transport and equilibration in quantum many-body systems, both under unitary and Liouvillian dynamics. I am interested in structural properties of eigenstates and thermal states of locally interacting systems, such as their stability against local perturbations.
My CV is available on request. Please also consult my LinkedIn profile.