At UIC and beyond, students experiment with futures in quantum engineering

Uncertainty is a fundamental principle in quantum physics. What’s becoming more certain is that quantum engineering will be the next major wave in technology, and that University of Illinois Chicago will be at its center.

At UIC, students gain early entry to this burgeoning field through research, entrepreneurial and educational opportunities. Already, they’ve worked with quantum computers at national laboratories Argonne and Fermilab and on massive quantum network projects. They’ve even helped design technologies for local startup companies using quantum computing.

hese experiences reflect UIC’s unique role in the growing “quantum prairie” of the Midwest, where universities and companies advance these new technologies built on the strange behavior of atoms and even smaller particles. Harnessing quantum phenomena like entanglement and superposition could lead to huge advances in computing, medical imaging, communication and other fields.

As Chicago stakes out its place as the nation’s hub for quantum science in the International Year of Quantum, the city’s only public research university will be essential in meeting the surging demand for quantum specialists.

“Chicago is the place to be if you want to do quantum, but Chicago can’t be successful without UIC investing in this space,” said Thomas Searles, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “We have computer science, we have physics, we have the national labs, we have collaborations. It’s a perfect storm for us to be able to contribute and really create the talent that meets the need of the nation in this space.”

To meet a rising demand from students, the College of Engineering is adding new courses and new faculty to give students the foundational knowledge they need to participate in the quantum computing workforce. And through a growing network of ties to local and national research partners and startup businesses, UIC students can get hands-on experience building tomorrow’s quantum innovations.

“We want our students to have an opportunity to work, to connect, to experience, to pursue what they are interested in,” said Daniela Tuninetti, UIC professor and head of electrical and computer engineering. “We want them to be prepared for what comes next in their career, and we want to make sure that once they have a degree, they have already had that opportunity.”

Surge of student interest

Last fall, two UIC student groups met up for an unusual spin on a familiar game: quantum chess. Members of the Quantum Information Science Society invited the UIC Chess Club to play this new chess, designed by physicists to illustrate key quantum concepts.

The chess meetup was meant to show that quantum concepts aren’t just of interest to engineers. These once-obscure physics topics could soon influence everything from finance to law to medicine.

That message resonates with the Quantum Information Science Society, formed by undergraduate students Caleb Williams and Taha Munshi in 2023 to gather students enthusiastic about the field.

Three years later, the society boasts a mailing list of over 500 members and holds multiple events each year. They invite experts from the academic and corporate worlds to come talk about opportunities in quantum science. They also visit local research labs at universities and startups and host peer teaching sessions to introduce curious students to the basics of quantum computing, optics and other crossover topics.

“You don’t necessarily have to major in physics or engineering to do quantum; you can do quantum biology, quantum chemistry, quantum finance,” said Munshi, a third-year student studying engineering physics. “If we get everyone to know about quantum, then in the future, there’s going to be more people to fill those positions when the field is going to start growing very rapidly.”

The growth of the student club mirrors the growing demand for courses on quantum subjects at UIC. Once a topic for only the most advanced graduate students, quantum science is now attracting more and more undergraduates who have enrolled in classes and sought to work with faculty in this field.

To meet the demand, UIC is hiring more faculty specializing in quantum topics, including Lane Gunderman, Ian Mondragon-Shem and Adina Luican-Mayer. These faculty are launching courses on topics relevant to today’s most pressing quantum challenges, such as error correction and algorithms for quantum computers. Zizwe Chase, who initially joined UIC as a Bridge to Faculty scholar, is developing a class on entrepreneurship in the nascent industry.

“That’s one thing we want to, as a university, distinguish ourselves from other universities,” said Chase, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “We want to show the students that there’s many different routes you can take; not just academia, not just getting a job, but also you can have the opportunity to create your own company, your own lane.”

Fleshing out this curriculum at UIC will also benefit other schools around the country through the ReACT-QISE Consortium, a National Science Foundation initiative funded in 2023. Led by Searles, Chase and Tuninetti, the consortium of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions and institutions serving predominantly female students is broadening access to jobs in the field.

“This is a direct avenue for students that are interested in engineering physics and quantum to be employable after four to five years,” Searles said. “It’s a way of building generational wealth in engineering physics that didn’t exist before.”

Path to national laboratories

At Fermilab in Batavia, Ilinois, where particles once collided to reveal new subatomic particles, a new 6,000-square-foot building holds the instruments of the next physics breakthrough. The Quantum Garage is home to a half-dozen dilution refrigerators, intricate brass machines that can produce temperatures near absolute zero. Each contains a technology that could someday change the world: a quantum computer.

For the last two years, UIC doctoral student Evan Reeves has worked with these rare, delicate machines. He was chosen for the inaugural US Quantum Information Summer School at Fermilab in 2023, and he has continued to assist with research on the frontier of quantum computing.

“I had always wanted to work at Fermilab basically ever since I started going to college,” Reeves said. “It’s amazing that I can walk in, and there’s literally just a row of multimillion-dollar quantum computers right there that I can touch or go to a computer and directly program.”

At Fermilab and UIC, Reeves has studied how to apply machine learning to quantum technologies and new ways to shield qubits, the building blocks of quantum circuits, from outside interference. Armed with this research experience, he sees several career options when he’s finished with his degree, supported by the extensive network he’s joined through UIC.

“Knowing that UIC has such a rich and vibrant quantum community that is actively making sure that they’re out there when it comes to talking to all these partners is important,” Reeves said. “Not only for our research and getting our degrees, but afterwards in making that transition to doing work, whether that is at a national lab or a private company.”

Although she’s earlier in her studies, Zoe Denn Zuro is also benefitting from these connections. An undergraduate studying engineering physics, Zuro participated in the program at Argonne National Laboratory after only her second year of college.

With Argonne researchers, she examined how defects in diamonds can be used in quantum computers and sensors. It was Zuro’s first time doing quantum research and her first experience in a laboratory outside of class. From her training and lectures from quantum scientists, Zuro learned about the potential careers in the field.

“I never considered getting a PhD, and now I feel overall more confident,” Zuro told Argonne. “When people mention doing quantum research, it is a lot less alien, and I feel like, ‘Yeah, I can do it.’”

These student research partnerships extend internationally as well. In the summer of 2023, Williams attended the Undergraduate School on Experimental Quantum Information Processing at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. The experience in Canada confirmed his interest in the mathematical side of quantum science — the algorithms and information theory that will drive quantum technologies as they become reality.

“UIC gives me the entire life platform to even do this,” Williams said. “We are relentlessly taking advantage of the opportunities available for our benefit, and UIC both opens the door and continues to hold the door open for us to take advantage of said opportunities.”

Network effects benefit students

Some students aren’t even waiting for graduation to start working in the quantum field. Since 2021, doctoral student Atiyya Davis has worked at a government laboratory in Maryland, where she works on a large-scale quantum network testbed.

Quantum networks carry the potential for fast, secure transmission of data and algorithms that isn’t possible on today’s internet. Davis studies the effect of factors such as weather and traffic on information sent across these systems.

While her work is remote from the Chicago campus, Davis said that she still feels the effects of the city’s, and the university’s, momentum in quantum science.

“At UIC, I feel like the opportunities are endless,” Davis said. “It has definitely opened a lot of doors that I probably wouldn’t have if I weren’t in such a big quantum area.”

In Chicago’s growing quantum startup scene, many UIC students have found internships and joined research projects at companies such as EeroQ, Infleqtion and qBraid.

“We’re able to have the students actually see a dilution fridge and actual quantum computing chips and how they make it and how they test it in the lab,” Chase said. “We get the kids not only familiarized with the equipment and what’s going on with the processes, but also put their face in front of people that make the hiring decisions.”

Munshi, one of the Quantum Information Science Society founders, followed his experience at the Fermilab Quantum Garage with a project designing circuits at EeroQ. Working at UIC’s Nanotechnology Core Facility, Munshi and student colleagues are designing and fabricating a resonator for the company’s quantum computers.

As plans for the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park on the city’s South Side draw additional industry attention to Chicago, more students will have chances to meet international researchers and companies. But even as the quantum ecosystem becomes crowded, UIC’s student body and broad scientific expertise will help it stand out, Searles said.

“UIC’s biggest advantage in this space is the excitement and quality of students that we have that are really pushing these efforts,” Searles said. “And in research, we have strength in artificial intelligence, microelectronics and quantum information. There’s not a lot of places that have all three pieces together, and UIC has that.”

This story first appeared March 3, 2025 on UIC Today