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Timestamps

• (1:55) Alba shared her background growing up interested in studying Physics and pivoting into quantum mechanics.
• (3:33) Alba went over her Bachelor’s in Fundamental Physics at The University of Barcelona.
• (4:54) Alba continued her education with an M.S. degree that specialized in Particle Physics and Gravitation.
• (6:40) Alba started her Ph.D. in Physics in 2015 and discussed her first publication, “Operational Approach to Bell Inequalities: Application to Qutrits.”
• (9:48) Alba also spent time as a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford and the University of Madrid during her Ph.D.
• (11:25) Alba explained her second paper to understand the connection between maximal entanglement and the fundamental symmetries of high-energy physics.
• (13:27) Alba dissected her next work titled “Multipartite Entanglement in Spin Chains and The Hyperdeterminant.”
• (18:56) Alba shared the origin of Quantic, a quantum computation joint effort between the University of Barcelona and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
• (22:27) Alba unpacked her article “Quantum Computation: Playing The Quantum Symphony,” making a metaphor between quantum computing and musical symphony.
• (27:47) Alba discussed the motivation and contribution of her paper “Exact Ising Model Simulation On A Quantum Computer.”
• (32:51) Alba recalled creating a tutorial that ended up winning the Teach Me QISKit challenge from IBM back in 2018.
• (35:01) Alba elaborated on her paper “Quantum Circuits For the Maximally Entangled States,” which designs a series of quantum circuits that generate absolute maximally entangled states to benchmark a quantum computer.
• (38:54) Alba dissected key ideas in her paper “Data Re-Uploading For a Universal Quantum Classifier.”
• (43:51) Alba explained how she leveled up her knowledge of classical neural networks.
• (47:40) Alba shared her experience as a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Matter Lab at the University of Toronto — working on quantum machine learning and variational quantum algorithms (checked out the Quantum Research Seminars Toronto that she has been organizing).
• (52:18) Alba explained her work on the Meta-Variational Quantum Eigensolver algorithm capable of learning the ground state energy profile of a parametrized Hamiltonian.
• (59:23) Alba went over Tequila, a development package for quantum algorithms in Python that her group created.
• (01:04:49) Alba presented a quantum calling for new algorithms, applications, architectures, quantum-classical interface, and more (as presented here).
• (01:08:59) Alba has been active in education and public outreach activities about encouraging scientific vocations for young minds, especially in Catalonia.
• (01:12:07) Closing segment.

Her Contact Info

• Website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google Scholar
• GitHub

Her Recommended Resources

• Ewin Tang (Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Washington)
• Alán Aspuru-Guzik (Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science at the University of Toronto, Alba’s current supervisor)
• José Ignacio Latorre (Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Barcelona, Alba’s former supervisor)
• Quantum Computation and Quantum Information (by Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang)
• Quantum Field Theory and The Standard Model (by Matthew Schwarz)
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (by Thomas Kuhn)
• Against Method (by Paul Feyerabend)
• Quantum Computing Since Democritus (by Scott Aaronson)