More than 500 students and postdocs considering a career in quantum gathered at the University of Maryland (UMD) Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building on October 28 for the Quantum Leap Career Nexus (QCLN), a daylong event featuring a career fair, roundtable discussions, poster session and lab tours designed to support the quantum workforce.
Hosted by the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation (RQS), the event brought together local, regional, national and global organizations for meaningful workforce development interactions that help accelerate the broader quantum enterprise.
QCLN kicked off with a keynote presentation by Gretchen Campbell, UMD’s Associate Vice President for Quantum Research and Education and a senior investigator in RQS. She provided an overview of the quantum ecosystem at UMD and shared how she entered the field, from her undergraduate and graduate studies to her time at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
A career fair followed the keynote, with 30 employers tabling in the engineering rotunda. The exhibitors included a range of quantum companies and research institutions, including IBM Research, Microsoft, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, IonQ and more.
“QLCN bridges a gap by creating a new event focused on quantum undergraduates and quantum recruiting that didn't exist in the area before,” said Zohreh Davoudi, Associate Director for Education at RQS.
In addition to UMD participants, the event drew national attendance, with students coming from nearby colleges and from as far away as California, Florida and Utah for the career fair.
Some students came from Montgomery College, a community college in UMD’s neighboring county and one of RQS’ educational partners in its quantum workforce development efforts.
Matthew Campbell, who studies computer engineering and physics at Montgomery College, described the event as “an amazing opportunity to talk to a variety of companies, get guidance on what we should be doing, and the directions we should be heading.”
Another student from Montgomery College, a mechanical engineering and physics double major who goes by Skye, said she especially appreciated the guidance as a community college student.
“It’s overall been a very helpful experience, and honestly pretty fun,” she added.
In addition to the career fair was a roundtable discussion for students to interact closely with professionals from several quantum organizations in rotating discussions. Industry leaders engaged in dialogue with students about their career path, the future of quantum science and technology, and what they look for in an employee.
The roundtable discussion was followed by a poster session co-hosted by QCLN and the Mechanick Quantum Biosensing Workshop, where students presented their research to potential employers.
Dulara De Zoysa, who recently graduated from UMD with his Ph.D. in bioengineering, presented a poster from his time working in the Losert Lab, which is led by Wolfgang Losert, a professor of physics and Interim Associate Dean for Research who co-organized the biosensing workshop. As a recent graduate looking for postdoc opportunities, De Zoysa said that the career fair was relevant and useful.
“There is a lot of diversity in terms of the research that is presented, and a lot of different ways of quantum biosensing, so I find it very interesting,” he said.
To keep the conversation about the quantum workforce going throughout the year, RQS created a slack community for students to join.
RQS co-organized the event with support from UMD’s Division of Student Affairs, the UMD Undergraduate Quantum Association, the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance, and the Quantum Startup Foundry. The event was sponsored by Quantinuum, one of the world’s largest integrated quantum companies, with headquarters in the United Kingdom and Colorado.
“The quantum industry is rapidly expanding and will continue to need a quantum-savvy workforce at all levels,” Davoudi said. “Events such as RQS's QLCN play a key role in supporting and expanding such a workforce, regionally and nationally."
—Story and photos by Mansi Srivastava, UMIACS communications group
