Building New Pathways for a Quantum-Ready Workforce

Megan Ivory is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where she develops quantum applications based on trapped-ions and leads various efforts to build a quantum-ready workforce. She received her PhD from the College of William and Mary in experimental ultracold atomic physics. She previously led the Quantum Information Systems Team at ColdQuanta (now Infleqtion) and completed a postdoc in trapped ion quantum computing at the University of Washington before joining Sandia to develop compact trapped ion atomic clocks with integrated photonics. Her workforce development projects focus on introducing quantum science and technology at earlier education levels to traditionally underrepresented communities, for which she was awarded the 2023 APS Forum for Early Career Scientists' Diversity and Inclusion Award and the 2023 New Mexico Excellence in STEM Mentor Award. She is the Co-Director of QCaMP, a summer camp aimed at introducing quantum concepts to high school students and teachers, co-lead of the Quantum Learning Lab, an effort to establish hands-on technician training opportunities, and co-PI of QIST in the CSU, a project aiming to build capacity for QIST across the California State University's predominantly undergraduate and minority serving institutions.