CQE Student Feature

Quantum Engineering Group: Andrew Stasiuk

Research group name: Quantum Engineering Group

Research Advisor: Paola Cappellaro

Hometown, Country: Rockaway, NJ, USA

Academic History Prior to coming to MIT: B. Math Mathematical Physics, University of Waterloo M. Math Applied Mathematics – Quantum Information, University of Waterloo

What brought you to MIT? During my Master’s research, I quickly found that life as a theorist in quantum information, while rich and fulfilling, was not for me. By the end of that degree, I realized that I was sorely missing the experimental component of scientific exploration. I was fortunate to have great mentors, who suggested I reach out to Paola Cappellaro, my current advisor, as they believed our research methodologies would align well. One year into my time at MIT, I am happy to say that I was advised extremely well; there is no other research institution in the world I would rather be a part of.

What interests you most about your research? NMR is an old and well studied field. I often joke that all of the good papers were written in the ‘50s and ‘60s. What excites me about our solid state NMR quantum simulator is that even though the fundamental techniques have been well known for decades, we are still able to discover new techniques and find novel ways to push the limits of our system. In fact, having such a rich history of publication is a huge boon to my work. Complex pulse sequences for Hamiltonian engineering have been an integral part of the field for decades; when I am faced with a quantum simulation problem, I can browse through a rich toolbox of well understood techniques in search for a solution. By combining and leveraging various combinations of individual tools, we are able to devise techniques to induce an ever expanding set of observables of interacting quantum systems.