Chesley Bonestell, “The Exploration of Mars” (1953), oil on board, 143/8 x 28 inches, gift of William Estler, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Reproduced courtesy of Bonestell LLC.

Events

Can We Build a Quantum Workforce Fast Enough to Avoid a “Quantum Winter”?

As quantum technologies for sensing, communications, and computing advance, the sector is approaching a critical juncture. There are simply not enough people with adequate quantum education and training to fill industry demand: for every three current job openings, the United States has only one qualified candidate. With support from the federal government, colleges and universities across the country have launched undergraduate and graduate programs to channel diverse and interdisciplinary talent toward quantum research and business development, and student interest is budding but strong.

But as Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil write in Issues, “deeper, fundamental issues about the development of the technology itself are at stake if the United States misses this opportunity to build a quantum workforce that mirrors the diversity of its society.” At this nascent stage, the success of quantum education programs depends on the committed investment of universities, industry, and government—along with making sure students can see themselves in future quantum careers. How should education and research programs, partnerships, and funding be structured to create sustainable pathways for more people to enter the quantum workforce?

On Thursday, December 7, at 2:30 p.m. ET, join Sean Dudley, Tara Fortier, Inès Montaño, and Kaniah Konkoly-Thege for a conversation moderated by Charles Q. Choi about how the United States can build a diverse and interdisciplinary quantum workforce.

Panelists

  • Sean Dudley, associate vice president and chief information officer at Arizona State University
  • Tara Fortier, project leader in the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • Inès Montaño, associate professor of applied physics and materials science at Northern Arizona University
  • Kaniah Konkoly-Thege, chief legal officer and senior vice president of government relations at Quantinuum
  • Moderated by Charles Q. Choi, a science reporter who contributes regularly to IEEE Spectrum

Watch the Recording

Live Chat Transcript

*Email addresses have been removed from this transcript. 

Kelsey Schoenberg: Welcome to “Can We Build a Quantum Workforce Fast Enough to Avoid a “Quantum Winter”? We’ll be getting started shortly. Where is everyone joining from?
Nico Hernandez Charpak: DC!
Deborah Stokes: Hi all, currently in Fort Worth, Texas ;D
Marek Osinski: University of New Mexico
Mark Van Dyke – UArizona: University of Arizona in Tucson
Lisa Margonelli: Maine
Paul Agyebo-Gilberts: Hello everyone
Ira Bennett: ASU DC
Bennett Brown: I’m joining from Chicago, representing the QuSTEAM nonprofit network of campuses and companies.
Suzanne Sincavage: Fallbrook, CA
Craig Kier: University of Maryland
Sam English: South Carolina!
Mark Van Dyke – UArizona: Sunny and 75 degrees!
Lee Zia: Alexandria
Julie Emms: Julie Des Jardins (she/her), from University of AZ
Houlong Zhuang: Houlong Zhuang from ASU
Katherine Santos: Arizona State University, Tempe
Jody Bennett: Colorado
Marisa Brazil: ASU, Tempe
Suresh Muknahallipatna: Wyoming
Matthew McCune: Columbia, Missouri
Douglas Jennewein: ASU
Mark Byrd: Southern Illinois University
Torey Battelle: Denver, CO
Torey Battelle: and ASU!
Sanja Terlevic: Hello from Brussels, Belgium. Happy to connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjaterlevic
Lisa Margonelli: Here’s an article that Sean wrote recently for Issues. Inviting Millions Into the Era of Quantum Technologies” by Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil https://issues.org/quantum-technologies-workforce-dudley-brazil/
Lisa Margonelli: QIST Workforce Development National Strategic Plan, NSTC: https://www.quantum.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/QIST-Natl-Workforce-Plan.pdf
Josie Meyer: I’m in the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Colorado Boulder! Happy to join 🙂 My research is in quantum education, including research based teaching methods and also benchmarking the landscape of quantum education in the US. Please feel free to reach out and connect: www.decoherence.me
Matthew McCune: U.S. quantum leadership may hinge on public perceptions https://www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-quantum-leadership-may-hinge-on-public-perceptions/
Lisa Margonelli: Here is some of Charles Choi’s writing for IEEE Spectrum: https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/charles-q-choi
Josie Meyer: ^^ Paper showing the disparity that the vast majority of quantum 2.0 courses are at private R1’s
Josie Meyer: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.08629
Josie Meyer: As well as geographic disparities
Jody Bennett: Boulder Valley School District – K-12 is HERE! We are excited about bringing Quantum education to our system!
Tara Fortier: BVSD reach out!
Josie Meyer: @Jody Bennett I reached out you offline about opportunities to partner with CU to help share resources with your students — lmk if you’re interested
Jody Bennett: @josie Meyer – THANK YOU! Will get in touch!
Megan Nicholson: Quantum Economic Development Consortium https://quantumconsortium.org/
Debbie Tibbs-Collins: Hello, is this session being recorded?
Lisa Margonelli: Hello Debbie, yes it is.
Lisa Margonelli: We will send the recording to everyone who rsvp’d in the next few days.
Kelsey Schoenberg: We’re also streaming today’s conversation on YouTube, where the recording will be available immediately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTCc5NkCmq4
Debbie Tibbs-Collins: Thank you!!
David Liu: Purdue University
Karla Morales: @ Tara Well said! Agree 100%
Megan Nicholson: National Q-12 Education Partnership https://q12education.org/about
Jody Bennett: Looking to connect to Q12education.org. Emails have not been fruitful!
Suzanne Sincavage: Developing Quantum Hubs at Local/Community level (Non-Academic} similar to libraries would provide opportunities to capture “Missing Millions”!!!
John Diamond: Retired USAF in Centreville, Northern Virginia
Victor Casas: Looking for panel discussion speakers for Spring 2024 in Southern CA (Q-12/STEAM/CS programs)
Bennett Brown: 100% thank you to Sean Dudley! I think collaboration between industry and academic institutions is essential. Diverse institutions, new on-ramps, focus beyond the R1s: these efforts working WITH industry can create a diverse workforce. QuSTEAM course modules are (sometimes) built around an academic-industry collaboration for equipment, software, QPU credits, etc. (with Infleqtion, qBraid, THORLABS, qutools, QuEra, PASQAL, IBM, AWS, Xanadu, Sandbox AQ, … Q12 materials are great, and I’m sure Emily will get back to you. 🙂
Maajida Murdock: You have to invest in education in k-12.
John Alic: What do you need to actually know—and be able to do—to be part of quantum workforce? What do the curricula look like? How many curricula would there be? Seems to me to sell this message you’ll need specifics.
Suzanne Sincavage: Cool idea for a NIST initiative to fund a Non-Profit, to develop this idea. It would take NRC’s to a whole new level. Would also support CHIPS/
Bennett Brown: re: Jargon- the QuSTEAM Course 1 modules introduce concepts without math, so I agree that jargon is a barrier. But I think the anecdotal evidence leans toward the importance of introducing industry and societal impacts and career opportunities even before QISE concepts. Avoid jargon vs. start with impacts– It’s a “yes and”. Explicit background knowledge and vocabulary dependencies should be explicit in course materials to counteract preparatory privilege and remove the barriers, sort of like bridge programs.
David Liu: How do movies and other social media affect popular common sense of quantum technologies?
Josie Meyer: @David Liu our research group actually has a paper on this and how it affects the education system — it’s a really big deal that not a lot of folks are talking about!
Josie Meyer: https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/pte/article-abstract/61/5/339/2887982/How-Media-Hype-Affects-Our-Physics-Teaching-A-Case?redirectedFrom=fulltext
David Liu: @josie, thanks.
Suzanne Sincavage: Dr. Suzanne Sincavage. Founder: Foundation for Biodefense Research 501(c)3
tobias knight: Is there a list of all the Colorado-based Quantum companies/organizations/labs/etc.?
Bennett Brown: Our network has community colleges building QISE pathways: Columbus State CC, U DC, Harold Washington CC, Morgan State, Wilbur Wright CC, Central State, EICC, IRSC, …. The QEDC report on quantum technician certification had a number of additional CCs reporting activity.
Josie Meyer: The Quantum Ethics Project is currently working on a variety of educational resources for teaching quantum ethics to bridge the technologist-quantum divide. quantumethicsproject.org
Julie Emms: What lessons are countries ahead of us in quantum education teaching us?
Bennett Brown: With early expansion to diverse institutions, efforts now can have a “founders effect” in which it is easier to shift demographics while the community size is still small. QISE can be branded as a brown discipline. We do not want to inherit the subcultures and demographics and inertial traditional teaching methods from CS, EE, physics. We want to build a new discipline, a new inclusive culture. It is possible. Two examples: Astrophysics is way different than physics, culturally, for example. Ecology/evolution has a different population and subculture as a field than biology at large.
Julie Emms: At University of Arizona, Arizona Quantum Initiative, and the NSF ERC Center for Quantum Networks we are already starting to explore those cross disciplines quantum/AI, quantum/bio, Astro/quantum. In March we will be exploring on campus with NORI lab the Astro/quantum connection. https://aqui.arizona.edu/  cqn-erc.org
David Liu: Physics and Chemistry from 7th grade?
Suzanne Sincavage: Like Grandma, many are not in school, or have received formal education. It wouldn’t replace education. It would augment Education. It would support National Security efforts. We need to shape AI with Quantum interface to engage all the missing.
Maajida Murdock: Physics (quantum ) needs to narrate it own story
Bennett Brown: Re: Tara speaking about physics and CS at K12 level…. I imagine people are aware, but the Q12 initiative produced two reports on incorporating QISE concepts in AP CS and AP Calculus. They were long reports, full of ideas broken down by AP framework outcomes. When I spoke with Pat Yongpradit and Crystal Fuhrman (Code.org, and AP CS, respectively), quantum was “not yet over the threshold of relevance” for them. These two are great people, but maybe have not been persuaded that early exposure to QISE was key.
Suzanne Sincavage: This is why any program should be a collaborative government/non-government strategic partnership from the ground up.
John Alic: If you want to recruit students—and counselors—you need to be able to tell them, specifically, what they’ll study.
Maajida Murdock: I agree with integrating quantum concepts within the k-12 standards.
Suzanne Sincavage: Quantum Convergence
David Liu: In the future, we need to abstract out low level quantum gates and circuits for Computer Science and other majors.
Julie Emms: In our Center for Quantum Networks, we are seeing students from Computer Science, Physics, Engineering, Optical Sciences, Math and in looking at societal impacts, law and economics. There are many disciplines that need exposure to quantum, not just physics.
Bennett Brown: Some of the best educational materials are from industry. We (QuSTEAM) provide our institutions a paid subscription with QPU credits to qbraid. https://account.qusteam.org/tutorials provides pretty much all industry tutorials within a qbraid platform whitelabelled to your institution. (including IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Google, AWS, Rigetti, Xanadu/PennyLane, etc.
Maajida Murdock: Quantum for all inc. is training teachers in quantum concepts
Nico Hernandez Charpak: many high school students in the U.S. don’t have access to core stem courses during their schooling. In physics in some states 40% of high schools don’t offer physics at all. and when it is offered less than half of the time it is not taught by subject area experts. it is hard to imagine introducing quantum curriculum in K-12 without addressing the crisis first.
Bennett Brown: I hate sounding like an advertisement, but we have a large team that has been working on these issues! Access to equipment we’ve built out using a quantum trailer model, a hub/spoke model, VR, and remote access. E.g. we have $70k qutools entanglement demo set up at U Chicago that students from anywhere can access through browser, manipulate polarizers via browser, see results on webcame and in browser widgets.
Josie Meyer: That sounds really cool and I want to learn more! @Bennett Brown can we connect offline?
John Alic: Community colleges are grossly underfunded (depending on state & locality). That affect everything—not just quantum & STEM.
Marisa Brazil: @Nico – agreed, a root issue that needs to be addressed.
Suzanne Sincavage: Quantum Convergence: fusion of all theoretical framework’s. Fun innovative brain storming.
Bennett Brown: Poverty and other stressors: Using evidence-based teaching practices helps everyone. But it helps students facing other barriers the most. This moment – in which instructors are first learning to teach these new courses – offers an opportunity to finally and broadly implement evidence-based STEM instruction across many departments. And doing that is one way to move toward equity.
Catherine McCarthy: Thank you all for today’s discussion! I am Catherine McCarthy and I work with the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Network). We work with partners nationwide in informal settings (out of K-12 formal school settings), and the sparking interest at a young age is so important.
Bennett Brown: @Josie. yes! And anyone else, too. Josie. I opened all the work linked from the chat and will promote the work to QuSTEAM profs. Josie, great stuff in the literature from you, thank you!
Kelsey Schoenberg: Thanks to everyone who joined today and participated in this lively discussion! The recording of the event will stay up on YouTube and be sent out to all registrants. To stay up to date on future ISSUES events and articles, sign up for our newsletter (https://issues.org/newsletter/) and keep up with our work at www.issues.org.
Marisa Brazil: 👏🏼Thank you!
tobias knight: Thank you!
Paul Agyebo-Gilberts: Thank you
Houlong Zhuang: Enjoyed it. Thanks!
Torey Battelle: Thank you!
Suzanne Sincavage: Thank you very much. Let’s do it again.
Karla Morales: Fantastic conversation! Thank you!
Lisa Margonelli: Thank you!
Maajida Murdock: Thank you. This was great
Victor Casas: Thanks-great Talk!
Julie Emms: Will the chat be available! Thank you! Let’s keep the conversation going!
Katherine Santos: Thank you!!!
Lee Zia: Will you save the chat and send it out?
Andrés BARRENECHE: Thank you for organising !
Jan-Jo Chen: Thank you!!!
Kelsey Schoenberg: Yes, we will post the chat on the event page (as well as the recording): https://issues.org/event/quantum-workforce-event/#0
Bennett Brown: thank you!