Meet Stacey Jeffery who started as a Senior Researcher at QuSoft on 1 January 2017.
Research at QuSoft
One of my main focuses is designing new quantum algorithms. A particularly urgent problem in the next few years will be to design quantum algorithms for the kinds of quantum computers that experimentalists might actually build in the near future. These machines won’t work nearly as well as full universal quantum computers, but we might still be able to do useful computations with them.
Another research interest of mine is quantum cryptography. In particular, I’m interested in how to delegate computations to future quantum computers in a way that is secure – the owner of the quantum computer should not learn about the computation being done – and verifiable – the delegating party should be able to check that the correct computation has been done.
Background
I got my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, under the supervision of Michele Mosca. The main focus of my research was developing tools for designing quantum algorithms, and applying those tools to get new quantum algorithms for a variety of problems. Afterwards, I was a postdoc at Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM), where I continued to research quantum algorithms, but also began working on securely delegating quantum computation.
Why QuSoft
CWI is one of the top places for theoretical computer science and quantum computing in the world. QuSoft combines this computer science expertise with leaders in quantum information from physics, making it an ideal place for research in quantum algorithms, implementations, and topics at the intersection.
Outreach
Aside from my research interests, I’m also passionate about outreach initiatives aimed at getting young people interested in science – especially those that might not otherwise consider a scientific career. When I began my studies, as a Humanities student, I had never even heard of Computer Science, and it was only by a series of lucky coincidences that I ended up reading the book Gödel, Escher, Bach, and learning that there was a common thread underlying everything I found most interesting. I hate to imagine all of the universes in which I never ended up becoming a Computer Scientist! I hope that through more outreach initiatives, nobody who might potentially be interested will be left out of a scientific career.
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