Ethan Hickman Email & Phone Number

Ethan is in the sixth year of his PhD in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). He is advised by Professor Xiaodi Wu, has been affiliated with the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science since 2020, and was awarded an M.S. in Computer Science in spring of 2021. Before joining UMD, Ethan completed a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a minor in Physics at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Through undergrad, Ethan interned at NVIDIA, Datalogue (acq., Nike), and on the Elastic MapReduce (EMR) team at Amazon Web Services. Near the end of undergrad, he decided to combine his interests in computing and physics and pursue a doctoral degree in computer science studying quantum computing. Ethan's central research interest is the development of novel error suppression techniques for quantum computing in order to bolster the abilities of existing and near-term quantum devices (NISQ devices). A device built in the real world cannot be perfectly fabricated, isolated, or controlled; together, these avenues for error lead to a loss of the delicate coherence of the quantum state encoding a computation and, as errors accumulate, the device may fail to yield useful computational results. However, a broad array of tools referred to as error suppression techniques are being developed to partially accommodate each of these realities on NISQ devices. They are designed to be available before full error correction is viable (and may continue to be useful afterwards, or may boost a device's abilities enough to enable error correction sooner). By increasing coherence times and operation fidelities, we are learning how we can push quantum devices beyond their standard operating capacities, propelling us toward the early days of physically-realized quantum devices' abilities in some ways exceeding classical computing's known capabilities to the ends of novel science and useful real-world applications.My long-standing objective as a computer scientist, engineer, physicist, and quantum engineer is to learn how to better the world with our current understanding of computing technologies and to help push their boundaries further. Contributory to that goal is the requirement that we build a welcoming and encouraging environment for younger scientists to pursue work in this exciting and intersectional field. Towards that end, I strive to be a thoughtful, hard-working, and friendly member of the scientific community.

Listed skills include C, C++, Java, Python, and 12 others.