Students /

Cohort 1 (2025)

David Byfield

University of Oxford
Supervisors:
Prof Aleks Kissinger (University of Oxford), Dr Joschka Roffe (University of Edinburgh) and Prof Matty Hoban (University of Oxford)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I graduated from Durham University with a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science, and have worked professionally as a software developer for the past 4 years, 3 of which I spent at Riverlane, a quantum computing scale-up focusing on Quantum Error Correction. My research interests thereby lie largely within the QEC subfield, though I am also interested in Computational Complexity and Information Theory.

I’m excited to be a part of the QI CDT to expand my knowledge of the field both within and beyond QEC, and participate in cutting-edge research that will help bring utility-scale quantum computing closer to being a reality.

David is a current Cohort 1 Student Rep. 

TBC

Owen Cundy

Heriot-Watt University
Supervisors:
Dr Simon Milz (Heriot-Watt University), Dr Erik Gauger (Heriot-Watt University), Prof Erika Andersson (Heriot-Watt University)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously read an MSci in Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, where my dissertation focused on distinguishability in the Many Worlds Interpretation, and later completed an Msc in Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, with my research project focused on Quantum Transfer Learning. I have also worked in patents, primarily focused on wireless networking and network security.

I value being part of the CDT because of the exposure to a wide range of research topics, the interdisciplinary training, and the cohort structure. 

My research focuses on developing theoretical foundations for correcting correlated noise in quantum systems. 

Quantum devices are inherently affected by noise arising from interactions with their environment.  While conventional error correction frameworks assume memoryless and independent noise, real quantum systems often exhibit temporally and spatially correlated noise. This project addresses this gap by extending quantum recovery techniques beyond the memoryless regime.

We aim to develop a variation of the Petz recovery map for multi-time quantum processes. Using the framework of quantum combs, the work models noise with memory and hopes develops optimal recovery strategies that account for temporal correlations rather than treating errors as independent.

Alongside practical error correction, the project explores how correlations affect reversibility, causality, and information flow in quantum systems. The results have the potential to improve the performance of future quantum hardware while providing new theoretical insights into the dynamics of complex quantum processes.

Victor Fischer

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:
Dr Steven Thomson (University of Edinburgh), Prof Andrew Green (UCL) and Dr Declan Millar (IBM)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

Previously, I completed an MSc in Quantum Science and Technology at the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where my thesis focused on tensor network methods with non-Abelian symmetries. Before that, I earned a BSc in Physics at the Technical University of Munich, working on non-equilibrium dynamics in integrable systems for my bachelor’s thesis. My research interests include tensor network simulations, quantum computation algorithms, and optimisation.

Being part of the CDT has enabled me to develop interdisciplinary skills and gain a broader understanding of how different subfields of quantum informatics interact and influence one another. The collaborative environment and training opportunities have provided a strong foundation for my PhD research and continue to shape my development as a researcher.

Simulating systems of many interacting quantum particles is exponentially hard, and describing their full energy spectrum quickly outgrows any classical computer. My project develops new numerical methods that combine two frameworks to tame this complexity. The first, continuous unitary transformations (also known as flow equations), smoothly evolves a system’s Hamiltonian towards its diagonal form, giving access to all of its energy levels at once. This is essential for studying phenomena such as many-body localisation, where isolated quantum systems fail to thermalise. The second, tensor networks, compresses quantum states and operators by exploiting the structure of their entanglement. The central challenge is that standard flows generate large amounts of entanglement, undermining the compression that tensor networks provide. My PhD therefore focuses on designing entanglement-aware flow generators, exploring tensor network models beyond one dimension, and building a scalable, parallelised implementation.

Emma Hughes

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:
Prof Elham Kashefi (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Christa Zoufal (IBM)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s degree in Quantum Science and Technology from UCLA. During my Master’s thesis, I worked to improve the simulation of entanglement distribution protocols in noisy, near term quantum networks.

I am interested in developing and evaluating quantum algorithms for practical applications with the aim of identifying quantum advantage in meaningful contexts, and I hope to focus on novel algorithms in the context of quantum machine learning with a focus on both theoretical developments and practical implementations in near term quantum devices.

I value being part of the CDT because of its strong partnerships with industry and the interdisciplinary training it provides.

Emma is a current Cohort 1 Student Rep. 

My PhD research explores the capabilities of dynamic parametrised quantum circuit (DPQC) architectures. This is a class of parameterised quantum circuits that incorporates mid-circuit measurements and feedforward operations as a way of addressing the challenge of optimisation in variational algorithms. This challenge is due to a phenomenon known as “barren plateaus,” in which optimisation landscapes become increasingly flat and featureless as the problem size increases, making training infeasible. I am investigating how DPQC architectures can avoid the barren plateau problem while retaining sufficient expressivity to represent the target solution.

Philip Ilono

University of Strathclyde
Supervisors:
Prof Jonathan Pritchard (University of Strathclyde) and Dr Joschka Roffe (University of Edinburgh)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed a MSc in Data Science at Loughborough University, where my dissertation focused on facial landmark detection. My research interests are broadly concerned with quantum error correction, and I am particularly interested in theoretical computer science, quantum algorithms and the foundations of quantum theory.

I value being part of the CDT as it’s interdisciplinary training provides a chance to learn various different areas of physics, computer science and mathematics. The cohort structure also provides a chance to study and work alongside like-minded individuals with a similar goal.

 

Quantum error correction (QEC) is essential for developing large-scale, fault tolerant quantum computers. An important open question is how to best design and implement such QEC protocols on the underlying physical hardware that have their own noise characteristics as quantum computers can be realised through different qubit modalities. Neutral atom platforms have emerged as leading qubit modality for scalable quantum computation and is the qubit architecture that my project will be centred on. Neutral atom platforms offer long coherence times, high-fidelity single- and multi-qubit gates, and flexible connectivity enabled by atom shuttling. My project is specifically focused on the co-design of QEC protocols for dual-species Rydberg atom arrays. By co-designing quantum error correction with next-generation quantum hardware, this project will help reduce the resources required for fault-tolerant quantum computing and accelerate the development of scalable quantum technologies.

Anahita Manchala

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed an MEng in Materials Science at the University of Oxford, where my thesis focused on benchmarking and predicting the performance and usefulness of near-term quantum computers . My research interests are predominantly concerned with the practical applications of quantum computers and quantum algorithms for NISQ devices. I am broadly interested in the implementation and applications of quantum algorithms for simulation, including near-term simulation of molecular systems and many-body physics, as well as quantum algorithms for optimization and machine learning.

I value being part of the CDT as it provides interdisciplinary training, enabling me to contribute to collaborative research that bridges fundamental research and industry.

Haytham McDowall-Rose

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:
Dr Mina Doosti (University of Edinburgh), Dr Raul Garcia-Patron Sanchez (University of Edinburgh), Dr Rik Sarkar (University of Edinburgh)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed an MSc in Maths and Foundations of Computer Science at The University of Oxford, where I wrote my dissertation on fermion-qubit mappings. Prior to this, I completed an MSci in Mathematics at Imperial College London. My research interests are broadly concerned with quantum simulation, though I am also interested in topics such as learning theory and variational quantum algorithms.

I value being part of the CDT because it offers the freedom to collaborate across academia and industry.

The problem of learning an unknown quantum Hamiltonian from its time evolution is essential to the design and engineering of quantum devices, as it enables us to understand the unknown interactions occurring within a quantum system.

My research focuses on applying the agnostic learning framework to Hamiltonian learning problems, and understanding how noise affects our ability to learn Hamiltonians.

Gabriela Pinheiro Costa

University College London
Supervisors:
Prof Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (UCL), Dr Mina Doosti (University of Edinburgh), Prof Andrew Green (UCL)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed a Msc in Computer Science at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, where my dissertation focused on Quantum Machine Learning. My research interests are more geared towards possible Applications of Quantum Informatics, being particularly interested in Quantum Machine Learning, Quantum Algorithms Implementation and Quantum-Classical Integration.

I wanted to be part of the QI CDT because the programme vision closely matches my own personal research goals, and I take interest in topics of all three general research themes: Quantum Service Architecture, Scalable Quantum Software, and Quantum Application Analysis.

Our group has developed structure-aware Vision-Language machine learning models able to showcase compositional reasoning, where classical AI tools such as CLIP fail. The models, however, have only been trained on ideal simulations. My project is about developing the next generation of these models by designing architectures robust enough for running on real hardware. 

Transitioning from classical to quantum comes with a series of challenges, the foremost being noise. NISQ quantum computers are still limited in what is achievable before decoherence, requiring specialised circuit optimisations and error mitigation to expand the usability under constraints. One of our objectives is to integrate the developed structure-aware architectures into this process, a novel combination in QML. 

The goal of this project is to develop circuits that can effectively run on current quantum computers by combining structure-aware Vision-Language models with device-aware circuit optimisation and error mitigation.

Peter Shanahan

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I hold a BA in Physics from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s in Quantum Science and Technology from UCLA. My previous work focused on quantum error correction in biased noise settings, examining codes with asymmetric distance profiles. My current research interests include logical gate compilation for biased quantum codes, correlated decoding, and non-matching decoders.

I am thoroughly enjoying being part of the QI CDT, both for the breadth of expertise among the faculty and for the programme’s structure, which allows me to explore a diverse range of topics across the entire quantum stack.

Sophia Widmer

University of Oxford
Supervisors:
Dr Matty Hoban (University of Oxford), Prof Andrew Daley (University of Oxford), Dr Sergii Strelchuk (University of Oxford)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed an MSc in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics at Oxford University, where my dissertation was focused on Bijections in Quantum Gravity. My research interests lie predominantly in quantum foundations, with particular focus on quantum information flow in relation to quantum gravity and spacetime entanglement, as well as neuromorphic quantum computing.

I value being part of the CDT as it enables me to explore different areas of quantum informatics, collaborate across multiple fields and institutions, and pursue my PhD within a supportive cohort of peers.

Understanding how quantum information spreads through interacting quantum systems is essential for developing scalable quantum technologies and understanding complex quantum matter. This project investigates how qubit connectivity influences entanglement growth, information scrambling and quantum dynamics, combining ideas from theoretical physics and computer science. Motivated by advances in neutral atom and trapped-ion quantum computers, it will explore how different interaction graphs affect thermalisation, chaotic behaviour and information propagation.

The research combines analytical and numerical techniques, including tensor networks, random matrix theory and ZX-calculus, to study quantum systems with different connectivity. By developing mathematical models of entanglement dynamics and Floquet systems, the project aims to improve our understanding of quantum information while contributing to future quantum technologies and fundamental physics.

Aristomenis Zazanis

University of Edinburgh
Supervisors:
Prof Chris Heunen (University of Edinburgh), Dr Steven Thomson (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Antonio Barbalace (University of Edinburgh)

I am a student in the Quantum Informatics CDT currently undertaking my PhD research.

I previously completed an MSci in Mathematics at the University of Bristol. My research interests lie at the intersection of pure mathematics and quantum information theory, where I explore how tools from algebra, topology, and geometry can provide insights into quantum computing. I am particularly interested in quantum error correcting codes and their algebraic structures, as well as applying concepts from sheaf theory and cohomology to foundational questions in quantum information.

The QI CDT’s interdisciplinary environment enables me to bridge theory with concrete problems in quantum informatics, supported by a cohort that cultivates meaningful collaboration.

My PhD research begins with a central idea in quantum mechanics: a Hamiltonian describes the energy and dynamics of a system, while exponentiating it gives the unitary evolution that a quantum computer must simulate. However, realistic Hamiltonians contain many interacting terms that do not commute. The Baker–Campbell–Hausdorff formula shows how these terms interact when their evolutions are combined and identifies the commutators responsible for simulation error. Product formulas use this insight to replace a difficult evolution with a sequence of simpler ones. Using higher algebra and category theory, I formulate these structures in terms of universal properties, coherence laws, and higher-categorical constructions that encode the underlying Lie-algebraic relations. This work provides the mathematical basis for formal, compositional languages in which Hamiltonians can be represented, transformed, and verified systematically. This matters because quantum software is usually built around circuits and gates, while physicists and chemists formulate their problems in terms of Hamiltonians.