SQMS Center Annual Meeting & “Exploring the Quantum Universe” – A Fermilab Quantum Symposium
We look forward to seeing you from December 2 to 5, 2025, in Batavia, Illinois. This event is hosted by Fermilab and the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center, in celebration of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ 2025).
December 2-3: The first part of the meeting is reserved for the SQMS collaboration only to review the next chapter of the center. We’ll start by looking back at highlights from SQMS 1.0, then share the vision and goals for SQMS 2.0 and welcome new partners to the team. Early-career researchers are invited to participate in flash talks, and breakout sessions will focus on research milestones and organization within each of the three Focused Efforts. Dinners together will provide time to connect in a more informal setting.
December 4-5: “Exploring the Quantum Universe” – A Fermilab Quantum Symposium
Please check this page frequently for updates to our agenda, registration, and travel information.
Confirmed Speakers Include
Keynote Talk
Prof. Peter Shor, MIT
Distinguished Speakers and Lecturers
Dr. Jay Gambetta, IBM
Dr. Jun Ye, University of Colorado Boulder
Sir Peter Knight, Imperial College London
Dr. James Kushmerik, NIST
Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, Rigetti Computing
Department of Energy (TBA)
Dr. Florent Lecocq, NIST
Dr. Anna Grassellino, Fermilab
Dr. Chuck Black, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Prof. Mikhail Lukin, Harvard University
Prof. Andreas Wallraff, ETH Zurich
Dr. Itamar Sivan, Quantum Machines
Dr. Eleanor Rieffel, NASA Ames Research Center
Dr. Andrew Bestwick, Rigetti Computing
Dr. Travis Humble, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Dr. Bert de Jong, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Dr. Martin Holt, Argonne National Laboratory
Tentative Agenda Overview
Days 1-2: SQMS Kickoff (Closed Event – SQMS collaboration only)
Day 1 – Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Location: Fermilab – Specific venue TBD
Start Time: 2:00 PM
2:00 PM | Welcome and opening remarks – Overview of agenda and goals for annual meeting
Anna Grassellino (Center Director, Fermilab)
2:10 PM | Perspective from DOE on NQISRCs goals and vision
Zachary Goff-Eldredge (DOE Program Manager)
2:30 PM | SQMS Achievements & Future Goals
Anna Grassellino (Center Director), Akshay Murthy (Center Deputy Director), Alex Romanenko (Technology Thrust Leader), Silvia Zorzetti (Architectures & Use Cases Thrust Leader), Roni Harnik (Science Thrust Leader)
3:45 PM | Coffee Break
4:00 PM | Introduction of new partners – Welcoming institutions and teams joining SQMS
Moderated by Matt Kramer and Hannah Adams
Aalto University (Joonas Peltonen), Applied Materials (Haoxiang Yan), Bluefors (Benjamin Alldritt), DESY (Krisztian Peters), Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (TBA), IBM (Jason Orcutt), Infleqtion (Rich Rines), Kyocera (Takahiro Yoneda), Maybell Quantum (Tyler Plant), Northern Illinois University (Andreas Glatz), NVIDIA (TBA), Quantum Machines (Kevin Villegas Rosales), University of Illinois Chicago (Robert Klie), University of Glasgow (Martin Weides), USRA (Davide Venturelli)
4:45 PM | SQMS Young Investigators’ Flash-Talks – Research highlights from early-career scientists
Moderated by James Rondinelli
Agata Barsotti (University of Pisa), Francesco de Dominicis (INFN), Kamal Joshi (Ames National Lab), Edison Murairi (Fermilab), Jose Cruz Serralles (NYU Langone), Andre Vallieres (Northwestern University)
6:00 PM | Collaboration dinner – Location: Fermilab User Center
Day 2 – Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Location: Fermilab – Specific venue TBD
Start Time: 9:00 AM
9:00 AM | Morning breakout sessions – deep dives into SQMS’s Three Focused Efforts, define/refine research milestones, organize and align working groups – led by Thrust Leaders, Deputy Thrust Leaders, and Group Leaders
10:30 AM | Coffee Break
11:00 AM | Morning breakout sessions continued – deep dives into SQMS’s Three Focused Efforts, define/refine research milestones, organize and align working groups – led by Thrust Leaders, Deputy Thrust Leaders, and Group Leaders
12:30 PM | Lunch Break
1:30 PM | Afternoon plenary session – summary reports from breakouts, integration strategies across Focused Efforts
3:00 PM | Coffee Break
3:30 PM | Primer and discussion on SQMS management tools
5:00 PM | Advisory Board meetings
6:30 PM | Dinner with Advisory Board – Location TBD
Days 3-4: Exploring the Quantum Universe – A Fermilab Quantum Symposium
Celebrating the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology
Participation by invitation or approved application only
This two-day event celebrates the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by bringing together leading scientific experts, students, institutional leaders from government labs, academia and industry, funding agencies, Congress representatives and the public to reflect on the latest advances and future directions in quantum science, technology and applications. Hosted at Fermilab, headquarters of the SQMS Center, a Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center, the event will feature two days of lectures, tutorials, keynote talks, panel discussions and breakout technical sessions, poster sessions, interactive laboratory tours, live demonstrations, and public celebrations highlighting the latest advances in quantum computing, communication, and sensing.
Thursday, December 4, 2025
Location: Fermilab – Ramsey Auditorium and Wilson Hall
Start Time: 8:30 AM
Morning program – educational lectures and tutorials
8.30 AM – 10:45 AM | Ramsey Auditorium
8:30 AM – 8:35 AM | Welcome Remarks – Young-Kee Kim (Interim Director, Fermilab)
8:35 AM – 8:45 AM | Introductory & Goals for Workshop – Anna Grassellino (Fermilab)
8:45 AM – 8:55 AM | Remarks on International Year of Quantum – Sir Peter Knight (Imperial College, London)
8:55 AM – 9:10 AM | Quantum Efforts at the DOE Office of Science – Bindu Nair (Associate Director for DOE Basic Energy Sciences)
9:10 AM – 9:40 AM | National Quantum Centers: Coordination, Impact, and the Path to the Quantum Future – Moderated by Bindu Nair
Panelists: Directors of the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers – Chuck Black (Brookhaven National Laboratory), Bert de Jong (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Anna Grassellino (Fermilab), Martin Holt (Argonne National Laboratory), Travis Humble (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
9:40 AM – 10:20 AM | Keynote Talk – Jun Ye (JILA/NIST/CU Boulder)
10:20 AM – 10:45 AM | Coffee Break
Track 1: Quantum 101
10:45 AM – 10:50 AM | Introduction & Welcome to Quantum School – Silvia Zorzetti (Fermilab)
10:50 AM – 11:35 AM | Fundamentals of Quantum Computing – Eleanor Rieffel (NASA Ames Research Center)
11:35 AM – 12:15 PM | Introduction to Quantum Technology: Status & Challenges – Florent Lecocq (NIST Boulder)
Track 2: Quantum Technology
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM | Battling Decoherence Part I – Akshay Murthy (Fermilab), Dave Pappas (Rigetti Computing), Martin Weides (University of Glasgow), Faranak Bahrami (Princeton University), Sebastian de Graaf (National Physics Laboratory), Jürgen Lisenfeld (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Track 3: Quantum Applications
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM | Algorithms, Simulation & Benchmarking at the Utility-Scale Part I – Andrew Sornborger (Los Alamos National Laboratory), David McKay (IBM), Shraddha Singh (IBM), Matt Otten (University of Wisconsin Madison), Jeff Larson (Argonne National Laboratory), Yigit Subasi (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM | Lunch
1:15 PM – 4:15 PM | Breakout Sessions
Track 1: Quantum 101
1:15 PM – 4:15 PM | Industry tutorials
IBM: Qiskit Demo
Rigetti: Qubit Measurements and Quantum Processors
Quantum Machines: Quantum Controls: Calibration of Superconducting Qubits
Maybell: Dilution Refrigerator Technology for QIS
Track 2: Quantum Technology
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM | Battling Decoherence Part II – Lara Faoro (Google), John Saunders (Royal Holloway University London), James Rondinelli (Northwestern University), Jim Sauls (Louisiana State University), Tanay Roy (Fermilab)
2:30 PM – 4:15 PM | Hardware, Communication, Controls for Scaling Part I – Mike Hatridge (Yale University), Serge Rosenblum (Weizmann Institute of Science), Nicholas Frattini (Nord Quantique), Srivatsan Chakram (Rutgers University), Yao Lu (Fermilab), Johannes Fink (Institute of Science & Technology, Austria), Wolfgang Pfaff (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
Track 3: Quantum Applications
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM | Algorithms, Simulation & Benchmarking at the Utility-Scale Part II – Victor Albert (NIST), Riccardo Lattanzi (NYU Langone Health), Sofia Vallecorsa (CERN), Christian Bauer (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Hank Lamm (Fermilab)
2:30 PM – 4:25 PM | Sensing Part I – Roni Harnik (Fermilab), Gianpaolo Carosi (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Caterina Braggio (INFN), Alexandre May (CEA Saclay), Christian Boutan (PNNL), Noah Kurinsky (SLAC), Krisztian Peters (DESY), Daniel Baxter (Fermilab)
4:15 PM – 4:45 PM | Coffee Break
Track 1: Quantum 101
4:45 PM – 5:15 PM | Quantum Processors Gates and Architectures – Andrew Bestwick (Rigetti Computing)
5:15 PM – 5:45 PM | Quantum Computing Applications: Quantum Chemistry – Travis Humble (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Track 2: Quantum Technology
4:45 PM – 6:00 PM | Hardware, Communication, Controls for Scaling Part II – Jason Orcutt (IBM), Rajkumar Kettimuthu (Argonne National Laboratory), Cristian Pena (Fermilab), Farah Fahim (Fermilab), Jonathan Marcks (Argonne National Laboratory), Gustavo Cancelo (Fermilab)
Track 3: Quantum Applications
4:45 PM – 6:00 PM | Sensing Part II – Adrian Lupascu (University of Waterloo), Prineha Narang (UCLA), Peter Maurer (University of Chicago), Tim Kovachy (Northwestern University), Jake Covey (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
6:00 – 7:00 PM | Dinner
7:00 – 8:15 PM | Public Lecture
Title: Public Lecture – Quantum and AI: The Frontiers of Innovation
Speaker: Dr. Dario Gil (Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy)
Location: Ramsey Auditorium, Fermilab
Friday, December 5, 2025
Location: Fermilab – Wilson Hall
Start Time: 8:30 AM
Morning & Afternoon Program – Public Celebration of Quantum
8:30 AM – 10:15 AM | Laboratory Tours –Interactive lab tours highlighting quantum technologies
8:30 AM – 10:15 AM |Topical Roundtable Discussions (by invitation only)
8:30 AM – 4:15 PM | Quantum Showcase – Career fair, live demos and interactive exhibits
10:15 AM – 5:00 PM | Ramsey Auditorium
10:15 AM – 10:20 AM | Introduction & Goals for Day – Anna Grassellino (Fermilab)
10:20 AM – 11:10 AM | Keynote Talk: Peter Shor (MIT)
11:10 AM – 11:30 AM | Coffee break
11:30 AM – 12:10 PM | Distinguished Speaker: Jay Gambetta (IBM)
12:10 PM – 12:50 PM | Distinguished Speaker: Mikhail Lukin (Harvard University)
12:50 PM – 2:00 PM | Lunch Break
2:00 PM – 2:40 PM | Distinguished Speaker: Andreas Wallraff (ETH Zurich)
2:40 PM – 3:20 PM | Distinguished Speaker: Irfan Siddiqi (UC Berkeley)
3:20 PM – 3:25 PM | Remarks on Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park – Harley Johnson (IQMP & University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
3:25 PM – 4:40 PM | Scaling the Quantum Startup: From Lab to Commercial Enterprise Moderated by Jonathan Felbinger (QED-C)
Panelists: Subodh Kulkarni (Rigetti Computing), Itamar Sivan (Quantum Machines), Britton Plourde (QoLab), Corban Tilleman-Dick (Maybell Quantum Industries), Mihir Bhaskar (IonQ), Christopher Monroe (Duke University)
4:40 PM – 5:00 PM | Coffee break
Evening Program – Poster session and reception
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Wilson Hall Atrium – Poster session showcasing research across the international quantum ecosystem, early career researcher awards
Header image: “Wilson Hall and the Helen Edwards Engineering Center in the snow on December 20, 2024.”
Photographer: Ryan Postel, Fermilab
