Pete Shadbolt is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at PsiQuantum. He has worked on quantum computing for the last 15 years. Pete has a PhD in experimental quantum photonics from the University of Bristol and completed a postdoc in the theory group at Imperial College in London. In 2016, Pete and his co-founders moved to Palo Alto, California to start PsiQuantum. 

PsiQuantum’s only goal is to build and deploy a useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The company’s photonic approach allows it to leverage high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and existing cryogenic infrastructure to rapidly scale its systems. In 2024, PsiQuantum announced that it will build its first utility-scale quantum computers in Brisbane, Australia and Chicago, Illinois.

Pete Shadbolt is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at PsiQuantum. He has worked on quantum computing for the last 15 years. Pete has a PhD in experimental quantum photonics from the University of Bristol and completed a postdoc in the theory group at Imperial College in London. In 2016, Pete and his co-founders moved to Palo Alto, California to start PsiQuantum. 

PsiQuantum’s only goal is to build and deploy a useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The company’s photonic approach allows it to leverage high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and existing cryogenic infrastructure to rapidly scale its systems. In 2024, PsiQuantum announced that it will build its first utility-scale quantum computers in Brisbane, Australia and Chicago, Illinois.

Pouya Dianat, PhD, is the Chief Revenue Officer at Quantum Computing Inc. (QCi), bringing over 18 years of experience in the photonics industry, with a strong focus on the commercialization of photonic technologies. His expertise spans more than a decade in advancing photonic solutions, underpinned by eight years of graduate research in the field. Prior to his current role, Dr. Dianat served as Director of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) and Foundry Services at QCi, where he led the commercialization of the company’s thin-film lithium niobate technology beginning in July 2024. From 2018 to 2021, he was Chief Technology Officer at Nanograss Solar LLC, a company specializing in high-speed photodetectors. Between 2021 and 2022, he served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Drexel University while concurrently working as a scientist at Princeton Infrared Technologies, which developed advanced infrared camera systems. From March 2022 to July 2023, Dr. Dianat was a Senior Photonics Engineer at Optogration, a Luminar Company, where he led business development, commercialization efforts, and scale-up of photonic detector chips for automotive LIDAR applications. Most recently, from 2023 to 2024, he was the Market Expert and Director of PIC and Quantum Technologies at OPTICA, a leading global optics and photonics society.

Richard Luhtaru is a PhD student in the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab led by Jelena Vučković at Stanford University. He is passionate about enabling new applications using nanophotonics and is currently working on miniaturized Ti:sapphire laser technology for ultrashort pulsed lasers.

Ryota Katsumi received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Tokyo in 2021. He is currently an Associate Professor at Toyohashi University of Technology and research scientist at Columbia University. His research interests include integrated photonics and quantum photonics. 

Michael Semmlinger is a key member of Hamamatsu’s research support and marketing team, specializing in cutting-edge quantum sensing technologies, including optically pumped magnetometers and atomic clocks. Passionate about innovation, Michael bridges the gap between groundbreaking R&D in Japan and real-world market needs, delivering custom solutions that redefine possibilities in quantum sensing applications. Michael received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Rice University in 2020, centered on research in nonlinear metamaterials.  He thrives at the forefront of emerging technologies, shaping the future of quantum sensing with curiosity and precision.

Dr. Preisler was appointed Vice President and Co General Manager of RF Business Unit in 2023 following his previous role as Director of Technology Development, RF & HPA. Dr. Preisler has been involved with SiGe BiCMOS development since joining Tower Semiconductor in 2004 and has held the title of Director of Technology Development since 2012. He has served on the committees of the IEEE RFIC and BCTM conferences and as a member of the ITRS wireless roadmap bipolar device committee.

Dr. Preisler received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from U.C. San Diego and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech in 2003 with a thesis that focused on antimonide semiconductors for optoelectronics. After graduating he served as a post-doctoral researcher at the IBM T.J. Watson research lab working on crystalline oxides and high-K gate dielectrics.

He has authored or co-authored 32 papers in the field of compound and column IV alloy semiconductor processing and device development, and two book chapters on bipolar device physics and processing.

Pouya Dianat, PhD, is the Chief Revenue Officer at Quantum Computing Inc. (QCi), bringing over 18 years of experience in the photonics industry, with a strong focus on the commercialization of photonic technologies. His expertise spans more than a decade in advancing photonic solutions, underpinned by eight years of graduate research in the field. Prior to his current role, Dr. Dianat served as Director of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) and Foundry Services at QCi, where he led the commercialization of the company’s thin-film lithium niobate technology beginning in July 2024. From 2018 to 2021, he was Chief Technology Officer at Nanograss Solar LLC, a company specializing in high-speed photodetectors. Between 2021 and 2022, he served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Drexel University while concurrently working as a scientist at Princeton Infrared Technologies, which developed advanced infrared camera systems. From March 2022 to July 2023, Dr. Dianat was a Senior Photonics Engineer at Optogration, a Luminar Company, where he led business development, commercialization efforts, and scale-up of photonic detector chips for automotive LIDAR applications. Most recently, from 2023 to 2024, he was the Market Expert and Director of PIC and Quantum Technologies at OPTICA, a leading global optics and photonics society.

Michael Förtsch is the founder and CEO of Q.ANT, a start-up developing photonic quantum technologies. Q.ANT's product developments include sensors for detecting particle properties as well as for human-machine interaction and photonic computing. 

After studying mathematics and physics, Michael Förtsch earned his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen. For his scientific achievements in the field of quantum information processing, he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society.

After an international research stay at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, he started as a strategy consultant at TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG in Stuttgart in 2015. After successfully completing several strategy projects, he became the personal assistant to the CTO and vice chairman of the management board of the TRUMPF Group in 2016. 

In 2018, he founded Q.ANT in Stuttgart, growing the company to 90 employees and 4 product lines. Recently, he was appointed head of the German photonic quantum computer hub, realizing the development of a photonic quantum computer with a multi-disciplinary team consisting of universities and companies.

Gaël Jongbloet was born in Ghent, Belgium in 2001. He received his BSc and MSc degree in electrical engineering in 2022 and 2024 respectively from Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree with the Department of Information Technology. As part of the IDLab-Design group, he works on both mmWave RFICs as well as photonic ICs. His research interests include photonics-aided sub-THz transceivers for integrated sensing and communication applications

Stefan Preble is the Bausch and Lomb Professor in Microsystems Engineering & Director of the Microsystems Engineering Ph.D. Program at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He is an expert in Photonic Integrated Circuit  (PIC) design, fabrication, testing and packaging. His research is focused on the development of PICs for high performance computing, communication and sensing applications. He received a B.S. from RIT in Electrical Engineering (2002), and Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Cornell University  (2007).   He leads education initiatives for AIM Photonics, including, the online course, “Photonic Integrated Circuits 1” which has trained thousands on PIC design; he also leads AIM Photonics Testing & Packaging workshops and Hands-on Photonic Education Kits (HOPE) kits.

Dr. Jennifer Ellis is a research scientist at HRL Laboratories and the principal investigator for the Boeing-led Q4S program, which aims to advance space-based quantum networking by demonstrating entanglement swapping in space. In this work, she is leading a team of engineers and scientists to develop a robust, low SWaP quantum optical payload to do entanglement swapping. Before joining HRL, Jennifer was a post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where she worked on extending the range of state-of-the-art high precision time transfer. She holds a PhD in ultrafast optics from JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder.