For those that don’t know much about you, can you tell us a bit about your current role and your background in quantum?

My role is to grow quantum in Bristol by identifying and exploring new opportunities and partnerships for research and innovation activities that the University is involved in.

Prior to this role, I was Business & Operations Manager at the Bristol startup, Duality Quantum Photonics, and before that part of the management team at the QTEC pre-incubation programme. I have a PhD in Optical Microscopy from the University of Bristol. 

How do you see your role benefiting QTIC members and the wider quantum ecosystem?

I’m looking to create multiple ways that the University can support and collaborate within the ecosystem, whether that be promoting quantum in and around Bristol, helping to address the current quantum skills shortage, research collaborations or supporting quantum startups.

I am also keen to talk to anyone who feels like there are elements missing or underserved in the ecosystem, so please get in touch.

Bristol is recognised as one of the UK's top cities for commercialising quantum. What more would you like to see from Bristol’s quantum ecosystem to enhance this?

The continuation of community relationships, both inside and outside the ecosystem. Not necessarily as formal partnerships, but the sharing of ideas, the offer of advice to those who might be considering starting a new quantum startup, or those companies looking to identify what quantum technologies may mean or could do for them.

You’ve recently attended the Quantum.Tech conference in London. We’d love to hear your 3 top insights from the event?

My most surprising takeaways were:

• In the last year, UK startups have recruited more quantum individuals than were trained in the last 5 years.
• Some global companies investigating quantum technologies have fairly small teams, many with fewer than 5 people.
• A couple of companies were emphasising that effort should be spent on algorithms over hardware. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, current approaches on extrapolated hardware will still take far too long to compute.