Partner Spotlight – Sophia Economou

March 16, 2022

Photo of Sophia Economou

Sophia Economou

Progress/Achievement in QIS Ecosystem

Professor of Physics at Virginia Tech and Hassinger Senior Fellow of Physics

Significance and Impact

Sophia Economou is the newly elected Vice Chair of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Quantum Information (DQI). She also directs the newly established Virginia Tech Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering (VTQ).

Details

  • Sophia earned her Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of California, San Diego, where she worked on theoretical aspects of optically controlled spin qubits.
  • Subsequently, she spent several years at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., first as a National Research Council (NRC) postdoc and later as a staff researcher.
  • Sophia’s current research interests include quantum computing with various types of qubits, including spin-based, superconducting, and photon.
  • She is also interested in photonic entanglement in quantum networks, as well as quantum simulation algorithms for solving many-body problems on quantum devices.
  • Sophia organizes a week-long summer school for high-school students, which she initiated in 2021 as part of C2QA outreach activities, with the participation of members from other C2QA groups.

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