people
Zoë Holmes (Assistant Professor of Physics)
Zoë is a Londoner, but came to appreciate the delights of the north of England after a brief stint in Sheffield. She studied Physics and Philosophy at Oxford, did her PhD at Imperial before escaping to the New Mexico desert for a post doc at LANL. She started the QIC group at EPFL in September 2022. She loves a good conceptual argument (a hangover from that Physics and Philosophy degree) and thinks the prettiest calculations are ones that, once you figure out how to do them, are surprisingly simple. Like many a clichéd physicist, rock climbing forms a significant part of her personality. She very much appreciates her new found access to the Swiss Alps, but is equally at home on a damp and windy UK hillside, so long as there is a sticky toffee pudding afterwards.
Armando Angrisani (Post Doc)
Armando is from Cava de’ Tirreni, Italy, described as a Mediterranean “Swiss valley” by the eloquent Paul Valéry. He studied Physics and Computer Science at Sapienza University. Unable to pick between the two, he pursued a PhD in Quantum Computing at Sorbonne University. After living in Rome and Paris, Armando traded the chaos of urban jungles for the tranquillity of Lake Leman. In his free time, he finds joy in cinematic escapes and in comic books. He also enjoys working out and recently took up bouldering
Tyson Jones (Post Doc)
Tyson is from Earth’s greatest city - Melbourne - where he indecisively completed a triple major in physics, applied mathematics and computational science. His research history is as broad as his attention span is short and includes the study of quantum computers, machine learning, probability theory, gravitational waves, high-performance computing, and quantum turbulence. Tyson completed his PhD in Oxford’s QTechTheory group studying applications of near-future quantum computers, and techniques to classically emulate them.
Sacha Lerch (PhD Student)
Sacha is a local (comes from Nyon which is under an hour from Lausanne). He got his MPhsy from EPFL in 2022. He is currently a PhD student in the QIC group where he works on Quantum Machine Learning. He’s a fan of Haar integrals, log inequalities and insists quantum is just linear algebra. When he’s not doing Physics he’s probably fishing, mushroom hunting or trying break a bone skiing/snowboarding/dancing.
Manuel Rudolph (PhD Student)
Manuel is from Germany, graduated with a M.Sc in Physics from the University of Heidelberg in 2020 and then worked at Zapata Computing until the beginning of his PhD in 2022. He is a numeric expert with the strong desire to make his code run as fast as light. He also has a tendency to collect new projects at the speed of light (and sometimes completes them almost as fast). When not working he likes running (also fast). His favorite drink is Club Mate, he loves carbs and his favorite song is Bananaphone.
Ricard Puig i Valls (PhD Student)
Ricard is proudly Catalan and obtained his MSc in Physics in 2023 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He’s currently a Ph.D. student at EPFL working on Variational Quantum Algorithms, Quantum Simulation and Quantum Metrology. He believes the Fischer information is the answer to any question. He’s already infiltrated the Catalan mafia in Lausanne and spends his spare time listening to music, reading, traveling and playing chess.
Reyhaneh Aghaei Saem (PhD Student)
Reyhaneh comes from Iran and reckons Iranian food is infinitely superior to Swiss food. She graduated with a Masters in Physics from the Sharif University of Technology in 2023. She’s interested in quantum information theory and condensed matter physics (leaning more towards fundamental questions). She enjoys watching movies, reading books and then spending hours digesting what she has seen/read.
Joe Gibbs (Affiliated PhD Student)
Joe graduated from the University of Warwick in 2020 after studying Maths and Physics. Quantum algorithms became a passion during a summer working with Zoe and the LANL NISQ group, developing algorithms for dynamically simulating quantum systems. He is currently a PhD student in the University of Surrey’s nuclear theory group, studying quantum algorithms for simulating many-body systems, and continues to work with Zoe and her group. When he’s not frowning at Jupyter notebooks, he enjoys running, strength training, bouldering, and listening to loud electronic music.
Marc Sanz Drudis (Affiliated PhD Student)
Marc is also Catalan, did his BSc at EPFL and then moved to Zurich to do his MSc at ETH. He could not decide whether he preferred Zurich or Lausanne, so he fell somewhere in between. Doing a Ph.D. in EPFL but based in IBM Zurich. Still deep down, we all know that as long as he can play on Qiskit he will be happy (but don’t dare to call him the numerics guy or he will be very upset). If he was not doing a Ph.D. he says he would be a windsurf teacher or a photographer living in a campervan.
Supanut Thanasilp (Former Post Doc, now Prof. at Chulalongkorn University)
Supanut was born in Thailand and has a seemingly infinite supply of Thai snacks. He graduated with a M.Sc. in Physics from Imperial College London, and then got his Ph.D. from CQT in Singapore. Being a theoretical mastermind, he is currently involved in every ongoing project at the QIC lab, is ready to help with every problem or question, and generally acts as the emotional support PostDoc of the group. Here in Switzerland, Supanut enjoys long walks on the weekends, eats more fondue than the average Swiss person and has developed a borderline worrying caffeine dependence in the form of Club Mate.