María Gragera Garcés

Reflections on how Post-Quantum Cryptography is Shaping the Future of Financial Security.

Storytelling, as one of the oldest teaching methods, has historically served as a means of building connections within communities globally. This article investigates the influence of storytelling in modern science education, specifically its role in science classrooms and its observed decline in current scientific learning environments.

Once upon a time, byzantine armies surrounded a grand city, ready to conquer it. Each battalion, led by a powerful byzantine general was charged of maintaining siege and attacking the city from a different strategical position.

Overview academic paper "A Blueprint for a Scalable Photonic Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer".

Basic tutorial explaining the fundamental differences between quantum and classical data storage units, and how they affect computer performance. This notebook has been designed for non-technical readers, who want to understand how qubits differ from bits and how do these differences make quantum computers different from classical computers.

I was an invited speaker on Episode 23 of Genesis of Tomorrow, where I discussed Distributed Quantum Computing, its underlying models, and emerging frameworks.

I was an invited speaker on Episode 6 of The Quantum Divide, where I discussed quantum open source, what it's like being on the trajectory towards a possible career in quantum, simulation, and networking.

HKN TechX 2024 Panel discussion on pathways to careers in quantum science and technology for students.

As part of Qiskit Fall Fest en Español 2023 I gave a talk on quantum communications and the future of the quantum internet (spanish).

Talk on quantum networks and the quantum internet during Girls in Quantum 2022 conference (spanish).

I was an invited speaker on Episode 2 of Beitlab, where I discussed quantum computing and the quantum industry (spanish).

This project contains a list of the papers and publications I read throughout my first years in my journey through quantum technologies. The objective is not to curate a list of the most recommended publications for beginners, but rather to build a journal-like record depicting my personal journey through quantum research papers.

This study addresses a crucial challenge in photonics quantum technologies by engineering novel setups to generate single photon sources with specific and easily implementable wavelengths. This code is part of my undegraduate dissertation conducted at the University of Bath under the supervision of Dr. Peter Mosley and Dr. Andrey Gorbach.

As an IBMer, I co-created the first lab of the 2024 IBM Quantum Challenge. The lab is designed to introduce advanced Qiskit users to some of the new capabilities and functions of Qiskit 1.0 -latest version released at the time.

Comprehensive library of frequently used quantum error correcting codes for Julia's simulator of Quantum Clifford Circuits completed during the Summer of Code 2022 Fellowship. Project supervised by Dr. Stefan Krastanov.

Research project led by Dr. Sandipan Roy, focused on an analysis of quantum networks against classical networks in different mathematical graph settings from a statistical point of view.

Simulation designed in SeQUeNCe (Simulator of QUantum Network Communication) of an experimental set up based on The Virtual Quantum Optics Laboratory Figure 30, depicting a Hong Ou Mandel Effect experimental setup. I took on this project as means to become more familiar SeQUenCe as a tool, through collaboration with the NAU (Northern Arizona University) and the American CQN (Center of Quantum Networks) team.

I am joining the UK's Quantum Software lab as part of my PhD at the Uni of Edinburgh. The Quantum Software Lab is a research group that focuses on the development of quantum software and quantum algorithms. Very exciting!

From September 2024 I will be an ambassador for Classiq Technologies, a quantum computing platform provider with an IDE, SDK, Compiler and OS for quantum computing. Every few weeks you'll see me posting about their work and products! Hopefully together we will become more familiar with their incredible work and innovative products, which make them one of the leaders in the quantum computing space.

It was a pleasure to mentor at the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) 2024 Hackathon, as part of the IBM Quantum computing provider mentorship team. From Rolls-Royce to Cisco and Nomura our assigned teams presented incredible work and results leveraging the latest IBM software and devices. They tackled challenges such as: Simulation of Quantum Hamiltonians with Interesting Properties, Network Flow Search Problem - Needle in a Haystack, and Quantum Machine Learning of time series data.

Got my degree in Physics from the University of Bath! It's been a long journey... Onto the PhD!

It's my last day as Chair of University of Bath Physoc! A statement full of both joy and sadness.

In my capacity as chair of the University of Bath Physoc, I had the opportunity to participate in the 2024 Oxford Quantum Summit. This event, orchestrated by the Oxford University Physics Society, provided a platform for interaction among young scientists from across the UK.

As an IBMer, I had the opportunity to present at the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna Qiskit Fall Fest celebrations, a 1h 30min introduction to Qiskit!

Our team mentored by Benjamin Stott, implemented a Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) to find the ground state of a given Hamiltonian utilising classical shadows on Quandela's Perceval linear photonics software. We were able to test implementation of Shadow VQE on Quandela's cloud QPU as well as extend the implementation to larger qubit architectures and work on a theoretical cluster state based implementation. And we ended in third place!

As an IBMer, I had the pleasure of introducing an incredible cohort of A level students and University of Oxford undergraduates to Qiskit software, as part of the Qsium Youth Quantum Summit 2024.

Ingenii featured my work in their Member Spotlight!

I was invited to give a talk in the 2024 Conference "Oportunidades de la Computación Cuántica" (spanish).

I was nominated for the Rising Star award in the 2023 Femtum Leap Awards. These awards celebrate exceptional contributions to the field of quantum technology, recognising the innovative work and dedication of female professionals.

In my capacity as director of the bqb Quantum Youth project, I was a volunteer, organiser, and speaker at the biggest Spanish speaking Hackathon to date!

I co-founded bqb Quantum Youth! An international team of students from diverse academic backgrounds joining forces create and deliver quantum educational content for high school students. Quantum by student for student. Our mission is to inspire and inform young learners about the exciting career opportunities in quantum technologies, serving as a gateway for their entry into this emerging field. This project was founded in collaboration with bqb Quantum, the European Quantum thinktank. I am currently its director.

It was a pleasure to mentor at the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) 2023 Hackathon, as part of the IBM Quantum computing provider mentorship team.

I participated and was awarded a prize for my contributions to the 2022 Quantum Internet Hackathon, where my team and I answered the following questions: Can Quantum Internet be environmentally sustainable? How can Quantum Internet contribute to Climate Justice?

I am a PhD researcher at the Quantum Software lab, where I am working on distributed quantum computing.

As the Director of bqb Quantum Youth, I co-founded and built an international team of students from diverse academic backgrounds to create and deliver educational content for high school students. Our mission is to inspire and inform young learners about the exciting career opportunities in quantum technologies, serving as a gateway for their entry into this emerging field. In addition to overseeing all managerial aspects of the initiative, I led a foundational series on key concepts driving the current quantum industry, positioning students to better understand the technological advancements shaping the future.

I was part of the IBM Quantum EMEA community team as a fulltime intern during the summer of 2023 and later part-time intern during my final year of undergraduate studies. In this role I led efforts to build and nurture IBM's UK Quantum Community, working closely with IBM Partners and Quantum Hubs. Some of my contributions worth mentioning include: mentoring students during events -such as the NQCC Hackathon (2023 and 2024)- and dissertation projects - co-mentored a Uni. of Portsmouth student on a quantum dissertation -, being an author and translator in the IBM Quantum Challenge 2024, speaking and delivering talks to the wider quantum compunity - I presented at institutions such as the University of Oxford and IIT Patna-.

During my final year at the University of Bath I completed two separate research projects within the Dep of Mathematical Science and the Dep of Physics (my dissertation). Both projects investigated aspects of quantum networks, focusing on topological implementations and photonic hardware simulations respectively.

I contributed to Ingenii's quantum error mitigation stack. My library included existing error mitigation codes such as Clifford Data Regression, Neural Error Mitigation, and Measurement Error Mitigation, along with a comparison algorithm that allows users to identify the ideal error mitigation program for their specific project—improving users' accuracy while saving time and resources in implementing the optimal technique. The library's testing and implementation were carried out using Ingenii data and experiments sourced from academic collaborations.

I participated in Google's 22 Summer of code project through Julia (the programming language). My project consisted in an "Implementation of a quantum error correction code library for Julia's Clifford gate simulator".

I completed a 13 month long industrial placement within Cisco. During this time I worked within the R&D Quantum Networking European team was well as Project Management DES team. My focus was on long term quantum protocol design and quantum software testing utilising state of the art simulators such as NetSquid and the SeQUeNCe toolbox. As a part of my role I contributed to discussion and work in CQNs (American Center for Quantum Networks) Thrust 1 discussions as an industrial partner.