World Quantum Day Invited Speakers
Invited Speaker Biographies
Tina Brower-Thomas
Scientist, Howard University Graduate School, Department of Energy Joint Appointee, Thrust Lead Quantum Ecosystems, Howard University, PI NSF Center for Quantum Networks, PI-Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, Investigator Co-Design Center for Quantum Advantage, Former Education Director, Center for Integrated Quantum Materials
Dr. Brower-Thomas is the PI for the Department of Defense, Defense University Research Instrument Program (DURIP), Growing Perfect Diamond. She is the Co-PI for The Center for Quantum Networks (CQN) and supports research thrust 3: Quantum Devices, Materials, and Fundamentals. Dr. Brower-Thomas is an investigator for the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), supporting the materials thrust and a volunteer on C2QA’s work force development board. Dr Brower had a successful run as the Co-PI for the National Science Foundation funded Center of Integrated Quantum Materials (CIQM) where she served as the Center’s executive director at Howard and the Center’s education director building a highly regarded research and education program and developing and managing activities across eight institutions. She also contributed to the research area as an investigator in the 2D heterostructure research area. Upon CIQM’s sunset in March of 2025, Dr. Brower-Thomas was honored to be accept a Joint Appointment with the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. In this role, Dr. Brower-Thomas will serve as the Thrust Lead for Quantum Ecosystems. During career at Howard, Tina has served as the assistant director for the integration of research in education and taught courses in nanoscience and nanotechnology in the department of chemical engineering. Her research focus includes molecular self-assembly, surface functionalization, chemical vapor deposition, and chemical intercalation of 2D materials. In addition to being research faculty in the graduate school at Howard University, she holds a visiting appointment at Harvard University in the group of Robert Westervelt. Tina has been invited as keynote speaker, expert panelist and career panel moderator for leaders in STEM such as The National Science Foundation, The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, qubitxqubit, IBM, The Department of Energy and American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Quantum Economic Development Consortium. In addition to research, her invited talks have been relevant to STEM education including developing criteria in quantum education, building the quantum workforce, increasing STEM awareness, addressing racial and gender equality in STEM and creating culture and community in research centers. Tina is a member of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium. Tina is on the advisory boards for the DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) and the National Science Foundation funded Science and Technology Center, The Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS). In March of 2020, Dr. Brower-Thomas was recognized by her graduate school alma mater, New York University, Tandon School of Engineering, with the Champion Award for the Ninth Annual Women in STEM Conference. Tina Louise Brower-Thomas received a BS in chemistry from Howard University a MS of chemistry and PhD in materials chemistry from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. She completed a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at the Naval Research Lab, Surface and Microanalysis Division, Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering. Before joining Howard University, Tina was a consultant at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and The Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Tina enjoys dancing, cooking, gardening, singing, and traveling. A classically trained dancer, and veteran of the stage, she is an advocate for the performing arts. During especially large events Tina produced, and managed the backstage for JBV productions, a full service special events and concert production company founded by her late father. Tina is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Washington. Tina is a board member of the Mary Church Terrell House and qubitxqubit.
Ilya Safro
Associate Professor, Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Delaware
Dr. Ilya Safro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Delaware, with joint affiliations in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Data Science Institute. He received his B.S. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Safro was a postdoctoral researcher and Argonne Scholar at Argonne National Laboratory and previously served as a faculty member in the School of Computing at Clemson University. His research interests include quantum computing, graph algorithms, large-scale optimization, and machine learning. He serves on the editorial boards of journals such as IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering and the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and has been a technical program committee member for numerous top conferences. In 2024, he co-chaired the Quantum Algorithms technical track at the IEEE Quantum Computing and Engineering conference. His research is primarily funded by the NSF, DARPA, DOE, NIH, and industry. Dr. Safro has authored over 100 articles and book chapters and is a co-founder of Academentory.com, a platform designed to connect students with research advisers and facilitate PhD position searches.
David Biersach
Designer and technology architect , Brookhaven National Laboratory
Dr. Dave Biersach is a 1989 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. His majors were Physics and Mathematics. He then served as a combat engineer commissioned officer in the United States Army stationed in Germany and was deployed to the Kuwait Theater as part of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Later while attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California, he worked on several doctoral projects for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), including developing neural networks for satellite counter reconnaissance and high accuracy voice recognition for the F-14 Tomcat weapons armament system. After leaving military service Dr. Biersach developed computer systems for AC Nielsen, Johnson Controls, Harris Corporation, and Pfizer. He spent several years working for Microsoft developing commercial software before joining Brookhaven National Laboratory as a Senior Technology Architect. He is very passionate about teaching students the importance of integrating computing into modern science research. His present research projects include hyper-complex continued fraction analysis of Riemann Zeta Zeroes, quantum machine learning for high-speed image reconstruction (computer aided tomography), and fractal encoding mechanisms for protein sequences.
Vincenzo Tamma
Professor, University of Portsmouth UK, Founding Director of the Quantum Science and Technology Hub (QSTH)
I am a full Professor at University of Portsmouth UK with a personal chair in Quantum Physics & Quantum Technology, and the Founding Director of the Quantum Science and Technology Hub (QSTH).
I received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Bari and in Applied Physics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2010 under the International Cooperation Program Award awarded by the Italian Ministry of Research.
After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship issued by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, I moved as a group leader to the Institute of Quantum Physics at Ulm University, Germany, before joining the University of Portsmouth in 2016.
Christopher Lirakis
IBM Quantum Lead for Quantum System Two System Engineering, Adjunct Professor at URI Physics
A native Rhode Islander, Dr. Lirakis received his PhD in High Energy physics in 1989 from Northeastern University. During his thesis work and as a post-doc he worked on the development and deployment of large scale particle detectors. After leaving the high energy physics field, Dr. Lirakis became interested in the newer field of quantum information. His initial work started on the metropolitan scale quantum key distribution with BBN Technologies. He played a pivotal role in helping BBN enter the field of quantum computation development. During this time, he formed a he formed a partnership with IBM. He later made the transition from BBN to IBM and has helped the IBM team grow.
Dr. Lirakis is currently a research staff member in the IBM Quantum team. His current responsibility is to lead worldwide deployments of quantum processors. He is also responsible for helping to guide a global hardware ecosystem focused on economic development around quantum hardware. He has been a part of the IBM team since 2012.