Nicholas B. Email & Phone Number

Yorktown Heights, Ny, Us

Batavia, Illinois, United States

Batavia, Illinois, United States

Established under the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018, the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center at Fermilab is researching, among other projects, both traditional 2D superconducting qubit chip, as well as novel 3D radio-frequency cavity, architectures in pursuit of building a quantum computer. Our full-stack mandate entails fundamental material science and device fabrication, device and hardware integration, as well as quantum algorithm thrusts. As a researcher at the Centre, I'm primarily involved in the co-design thrust, providing a crucial 'link' between the high-level theoretical work and the lower-level engineering efforts.- Leading a team studying criteria with which to statistically benchmark the 3D system. Wrote a Python package (incorporating Numpy, SciPy, Matplotlib, QuTiP as well as the parallel programming package Joblib) to simulate the full system. This involved creating a custom parameter optimizer in Julia, using a combination of both analytical linear algebra calculations and efficient BLAS functions, to find the optimal control pulses. The system's dynamics were simulated, and statistical hypothesis testing performed on the results- Submitted batch simulation jobs to Fermilab's HPC cluster using a SLURM job scheduler with a multiprocessing Dask backend. This decreased the numerical simulation time by roughly a factor of 10- Part of a relatively small technical team setting up, from scratch, a full superconducting quantum computing laboratory with five dilution refrigerators and accompanying hardware which will serve as the main laboratory of the Center- In a team of two, wrote a Python utility which interfaces with the pulse control hardware while automatically logging measurement data as well as 'abstracting away' the low-level hardware details from the eventual end-users- Created a simple web app using React and Python to display the real-time readings of various temperature and pressure sensors on a dashboard

Johannesburg Metropolitan Area

Volunteered to design, build & administer a website for my research group at WITS University using Wordpress.

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

During my graduate research, I was chiefly involved in both theoretical & experimental investigations of various aspects of higher-dimensional, multi-particle quantum photonics and quantum information using light. These studies entailed practicing and perfecting numerous skills typical of higher-level STEM research, such as the theoretical modelling of real-world systems using domain knowledge; data collection, statistical analysis and visualisation; manuscript writing; and presenting results to both technical and lay audiences.- Authored 7 publications in reputable international physics journals during my graduate studies- Presented technical talks and posters at numerous conferences both locally as well as abroad in Canada, the USA and Scotland- Collaborated with scientists in Scotland and Canada- Wrote a suite of systems engineering tools in LabVIEW to control specialised optical photonic hardware, such as UV lasers, SLMs and single photon detectors, as well as both collect and analyse data in real time. This integrated suite was subsequently used by multiple colleagues, through a simple dashboard GUI, to streamline future experiments and data acquisition- Programmed a convolutional neural network in tensorflow to classify an alphabet of noisy optical 'modes', or patterns, in real time from images taken using low-light cameras. Integrated this software with existing hardware to more efficiently collect and classify experimental data- Numerically simulated the realistic propagation of various 2D spatial patterns of light through typical optical components, using Mathematica

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

- Studied quantum information within a special relativistic setting, in particular, modelling quantum ghost imaging between two parties moving with respect to each other- Using real-world images of spatial patterns of light, I wrote a Python package to label, process and feed the data into a custom supervised convolutional neural network written using Tensorflow to classify the noisy images into categories. The trained model achieved a 99.3% accuracy was used in real time in an optical experiment, streamlining the data analysis process.

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Performed a novel quantum photonics experiment in higher-dimensional ghost imaging, using entanglement-swapped photons. I was part of a team which designed and built the free-space optical system as well as being in charge of both theoretically modelling the system and analysing the data.

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

Planned and oversaw an experimental project for engineering undergraduates & graded their reports. Observed an 8% improvement in the students' results compared with the previous three years.

Hatfield, Pretoria

I was elected the vice-chairman of my university residence, Taaibos, by a wide margin. Throughout my term, my duties included:- Responsible for academic oversight & support programmes which included implementing a novel in-house mentorship programme, which resulting in a 6% reduction in failure rates among the first-year residence housemates- Compiled and wrote reports, using anonymised grade data, to keep senior university management abreast of the academic performance of the residence. This included giving recommendations on how to ensure residence members were passing their classes while remaining engaged in various extra-curricular activities and living balanced lives while studying. This was especially important given that many students were came from underprivileged backgrounds and experienced culture shock when living in a residence- Provided oversight over & constantly assisted other house committee members who were in charge of other sub-portfolios, such as outreach, sports, finance & social wellbeing- Was chosen as the best residence vice-chairman out of the univesity's roughly 25 residences

Hatfield, Pretoria

Taught undergradute-level calculus & mathematical modelling to multiple cohorts of engineering and physics students, and graded their exams.

Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

As a summer student intern for two three-month periods over the university recesses in 2012 and 2013, I gained practical experience in an experiment on classical 'self-healing' optical beams. The project involved simulating the optical beams in Maple as well as building and aligning the experimental setup.

Ph.D. Physics, Quantum Optics & Quantum Information

Activities and Societies: Squash club, Crossfit, WITS SPIE society student chapter vice president, physics outreach and social volunteering

M.Sc. Physics, Theoretical And Mathematical Physics

Activities and Societies: Squash club

M.Sc. Physics, Theoretical Physics

Activities and Societies: Crossfit, physics society

B.Sc Physics (Hons.), Physics & Mathematics, Distinction

Activities and Societies: Residence House-Committee Vice-Chairman, various residence activities such as Serenade (an a cappella.

Bachelor'S Degree, Physics, Mathematics & Chemistry, Distinction

Activities and Societies: RAG (Reach out And Give) outreaches, 'Serrie' performance competition, sport & residence socials.