The Department of Computer Science welcomes Dr. Zahra Raissi as a new junior research group leader in the area of "Quantum Information" since the summer semester 2023. The overall goal of this junior research group is to investigate and understand how quantum mechanics can be used to develop new technologies.
Dr. Raissi first studied physics at Isfahan University of Technology Iran, where she completed her master's degree. She then started her PhD in quantum computing at Sharif University of Technology Iran. Due to her outstanding performance, she got the opportunity to continue her PhD at ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona. Dr. Raissi wrote her PhD thesis on various topics such as many-body entanglement, quantum error correction and quantum networks under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Acin and Prof. Vahid Karimipour. Following her successful PhD, she was able to complete two postdoctoral fellowships at ICFO in Barcelona and the Center for Quantum Information Science & Engineering Virginia Tech in the United States.
As the new junior research group leader, Dr. Zahra Raissi now focuses on four main topics: Many-body entanglement, Quantum error correction, Quantum networks, and Quantum algorithms.
Many-Body Entanglement is a resource that theoretically allows quantum technology to outperform its classical counterparts. That is, access to an entangled state enables quantum information processing tasks, such as teleportation, quantum error correction, measurement-based quantum computation, and entanglement-based quantum communication. Despite their importance, we are still far from a complete understanding of entanglement in the multipartite case.
Quantum error correction is another major challenge in the field of quantum education and computation, and an area where multipartite entangled states have applications. Investigating the connection between quantum codes and existing classical error correction codes led us to understand the structure of quantum codes and their connection to the highly entangled subspaces.
Quantum networks are among the most challenging and fundamental problems in science, as we need them to have communication. The problem is especially important in the quantum case because we need to use entanglement wisely to communicate more efficiently than in classical networks.
The term quantum algorithms, although both quantum and classical algorithms are step-by-step, is usually used to refer to those algorithms that are inherently quantum-based or use an essential feature of quantum computation, such as quantum superposition or quantum entanglement as a resource.
In her new position as a junior research group leader, Dr. Raissi is very grateful for the independence in her research and the many opportunities she is given in this position. She is also very open to collaborations with other groups in the department and is looking forward to teaching as well as doing research. "I would like to focus on bridging the gap between abstract theory and experimental reality. Most of the basic principles underlying quantum information technologies are well understood at this point, and the central challenge now is to determine how real physical systems can be identified and developed to realize these technologies," Dr. Raissi said. She also sees this stage in her academic career as a promising challenge to establish herself as a scientist.
The junior research group management offers researchers the opportunity to independently lead a research group and to deepen their own research focus.
We wish Dr. Zahra Raissi a good start as a junior research group leader at the Department for Computer Science at Paderborn University.
