University of Connecticut Presenters and Panelists:

President Radenka Maric

Pamir Alpay

Abhijit Banerjee

Alexander Balatsky

Bing Wang

Fei Miao

Lea Ferreira dos Santos

Sanguthevar Rajasekaran

Walter Krawec

Presenting Partners

Michael Crair is Vice Provost for Research and the William Ziegler III Professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and Ophthalmology & Visual Science at Yale University. As Vice Provost for Research, he has University-wide oversight over research strategy, planning, policies, infrastructure and facilities, technology transfer and engagement with public and private sponsors of research. He works to encourage and broadly support research at Yale, innovative interdisciplinary scholarship, entrepreneurship, innovation, and enable groundbreaking discoveries across all schools and departments at the university. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, Inc. and the Dan Lewis Foundation for Brain Regeneration Research.

Vivek Ramakrishnan is a Director at UConn’s Venture Development Team. He has extensive experience in private equity and venture capital investing, having started his career at Intellectual Ventures, a $6B fund based in Seattle. Before joining UConn, he was Managing Partner of New Ventures at Ventech Solutions, where he focused on private equity transactions. He also has significant experience in medical device development, technology transfer, intellectual property management, and fundraising for early-stage companies.

Michael C. Kunkel, PhD is an accomplished physicist and AI architect for Travelers. He is passionate about researching emerging technologies and creating innovative solutions. With nearly 15 years of experience in product R&D and scientific research roles, he has developed exceptional leadership and project management skills, which were instilled in him during his time in the Marine Corps and while running academic research programs.

Tyler Lauretti is a solutions architect in emerging technology for Travelers. His background has always balanced business and technology, and more recently, he has shifted toward the education space on these topics. Over the last few months, Tyler has become more involved in quantum computing, and to do so, he has focused on mastering the fundamentals. Based on his background, he describes himself as being in the “increase in proficiency phase” of the learning curve.

Jin-Sung Kim is a Developer Relations Manager for quantum computing at NVIDIA, where he leads partnerships and alliances. Prior to joining NVIDIA, he was a Research Staff Member at IBM Quantum. Jin-Sung holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Materials Science from Princeton University. He will be giving the keynote titled Accelerated Quantum Supercomputing.

Ken Robbins, Ph.D is a technical advisor at D-Wave. He started his academic career in cosmology at Tufts University before switching to quantum computing after one year. After researching exactly solvable models and VQE for his dissertation, Ken joined D-Wave early last year.

Dr. Mark Jackson is the Senior Quantum Evangelist at Quantinuum. He received his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Duke University and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Columbia University. He then spent 10 years researching superstring theory and cosmology, co-authoring nearly 40 technical articles. He is an entrepreneur-in-Residence at Yale Ventures, Adjunct Faculty at Singularity University, and a Director at Astronomers Without Borders.