The past few months have been a productive period for the Quantum Science Group, with current members and alumni involved in a range of impactful work.
The Quantum Science Group at the University of Sydney was ranked 25th in the world by Quantum Insider: https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/03/26/top-universities-for-quantum-research-2025/
Dr Ting Rei Tan and Dr Ivan Kassal’s paper Experimental Quantum Simulation of Chemical Dynamics was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and received positive press coverage on The Conversation, on the Nature website and in a University press release.
Dr Dominic Williamson had two papers published in Physical Review Letters: Playing Nonlocal Games across a Topological Phase Transition on a Quantum Computer and Low-Depth Unitary Quantum Circuits for Dualities in One-Dimensional Quantum Lattice Models.
Prof David Reilly and Dr Thomas Ohki launched a new start up, Emergence Quantum, and published a paper in Nature on their breakthrough technology that reduces the size of the circuits required to run a silicon-based quantum computer. This work was the result of a partnership between UNSW spin-out Diraq and USYD start-up Emergence Quantum.
Qctrl, the first spin-off from the University of Sydney’s Quantum Science group and founded by Prof Michael Biercuk, announced on 14 April that it was the first company to demonstrate commercial quantum advantage in navigation.
Iceberg Quantum – founded by former PhD students Felix Thomsen, Larry Cohen, and Sam Smith – announced in March that it had raised $2 million in funding and partnered with PsiQuantum to apply its fault-tolerant architectures to PsiQuantum’s photonic platform. In July, Iceberg Quantum entered into a partnership with Oxford Ionics to accelerate fault-tolerant quantum computing.
The surface code developed by former PhD student Pablo Bonilla to prevent errors in complex quantum systems is being used in Google’s latest quantum chip, Willow.
And let’s not forget our current students! Congratulations to the Quantum Theory Group’s Felix Thomsen and Edgar Tanuarta, whose PhDs were conferred; and to the Quantum Integration Laboratory’s PhD students, Gargyi Tyagi and Ben Field, who won Sydney Nanoscience travel bursaries to visit University College London later this year.
Welcomes and Farewells
In addition to these achievements, we saw the Group’s membership continue to grow in the last quarter. We welcomed:-
- Dr Dominic Williamson (QTG) to faculty
- Dr Milos Rancic (QIL)
- Honours students: Angus King (QCL), Fergus Ayton (QIL), Li Hong Liu (QIL), Luke Murray (QNL), Peter Lavilles (QTG), James Locke (QTG), Michelle Kazarinov (SQCL) and Aruna Sathyanarayanan Balaprabhavathi (SQCL)
- Intern: Amelie Skelton (QTG)
And we farewelled:-
- Postdocs Dr Elizabeth Marcellina (QIL), Abhijeet Alaase (QTG) and Salini Karuvade (QTG)
- Students Aleksander Jovanovic (QTG), Rhys MacKintosh (QTG) and Angus Rutherford (QTG).
- Intern: Harsh Raj (QCL)
We thank these former members for their contributions to the Group, wish them the best and look forward to collaborating in the future!