Bio: Kamal Sharma is an incoming Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering (ECEE) at the University of Colorado Boulder. His focus will be to teach quantum mechanics, quantum optics and photonics and their applications to engineering students at ECEE.
Sharma began his career as a civil engineer after earning a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. After working briefly as a structural engineer, he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology for a PhD in condensed matter theory, where he studied transport phenomena in low-dimensional interacting quantum systems.
He subsequently expanded his research into quantum information and superconducting quantum circuits, with applications to quantum simulation of many-body systems. He also served as a Geoffrey Green Postdoctoral Fellow in the Quantum Lab at ECEE, where he worked on topologically protected superconducting qubits.
Research: Sharma’s research focuses on the development of novel qubits with protection against noise and decoherence. Single mode qubits like the transmon and the fluxonium are each designed to have some protection against specific types of environmental noises. It is possible, however, to couple many qubits together to make a collective degree of freedom that behaves as a single effective qubit.
His research is aimed at the development of multi-mode qubits using theory and computer simulations. One of the goals of his research is to answer the question whether such qubits can be engineered to have better protection against multiple types of environmental noise simultaneously.
What excites me most about joining CU Boulder and ECEE is the opportunity to contribute to the academic environment here. At ECEE, education and research in the rapidly growing field of quantum engineering come together very naturally as electrical engineering is going to play a big role in realizing the advantages of quantum computing. CU Boulder has a strong culture of interdisciplinary collaboration, and I see ECEE as a particularly exciting place to help build connections between electrical engineering, physics and quantum. Beyond teaching, I am excited about mentoring students while creating an inclusive environment and preparing them to navigate different opportunities emerging in quantum engineering.
