About Me

I am one of the 2023 Summer interns at Unitary Fund. I am a rising Senior at New York institute of Technology, studying Physics. Besides school, I am a research assistant with my professor, researching non-Markovian open quantum dynamics in squeezed environments. I was introduced to quantum computing through Qubit by Qubit Early immersion program, and I hope to continue it. After all, I just spent my Summer working on it.

Internship

Getting into this, I didn’t really know what to expect. First, I am working remote, second, I am way out of my field, and third, what is GitHub? Even though I had daunting questions (and a near existential crisis) I had truly a great team behind me, and to support me. Dan, Vincent, Ben, Misty, Nate, Will, Nathan, and literally everyone I spoke to, either offered me help, advice, or generally good tips. When we started, we were tasked with getting the Metriq Client to run (I highly recommend for anyone else to do this as well, such a satisfying feeling once it all starts to work). Once that was completed, we focused on some Metriq submissions, and worked on some issues for the client or the website.

Then came the reveal of the new Unitary Fund website which looks superb (I didn’t do any of the aesthetics, but I am more than happy to take the credit). We started to find and work on various issues and converted the HTML files to markdown. Srila (the other intern - go read her blog post) and I worked through those (becoming pros at GitHub in the process) and worked through the issues that we found. During the midst of all this, Nathan and Dan proposed for us to be a speaker on a Quantum Wednesday on the Unitary Fund Discord, so happily, we took on the challenge. Afterwards, we worked on the Metriq client, and tackled as many issues as we could.

Quantum Wednesday

Truth to be told, I was kind of hoping that my computer fried and I wouldn’t have to do it. But I am so glad that I went through with it. Let me break down what Quantum Wednesday is. Find a research paper (or topic) that is interesting enough to do a 45 minute talk about. Simple enough right? So naturally I did my presentation on 4 research papers. Due to the nature of the other work I mentioned, I had one week to present a mock presentation, and two weeks until the actual quantum Wednesday. I have never googled so many terms in my life. These papers could’ve been written in another language the way I barely understood it the first, the second or the third time reading it. It was difficult, I said I was introduced to quantum computing, not that I was an expert in it. I spent roughly 25 hours reading, researching, and putting up my mock presentation in a week.

When the mock presentation day came, I can confidently say that it was the worst presentation of my life. I’ll spare you the details, but it could be severely improved. On top of that, a final paper came out in relation to the other 4, and of course, I naturally took that on. With one week to present all 5 papers, I gave it my all, trying to correct my errors, reading the last paper, and trying to make a good presentation. When the actual day came, I can confidently say that it was good, actually really good. It roughly took me 25 minutes to present it all in a clear and concise way, and I spent the next 20 minutes professionally answering questions. Ultimately, I am so happy that I did it (a learning curve indeed, but a challenge I am happy that I took). You can find the necessary papers and slides here!

Regardless of the time, effort, sweat and everything in between, this is truly the gem of my time at Unitary Fund.

Closing Note

Unitary Fund is an open source quantum technology system that works to benefits the most people, and a place that I will cherish (and brag about) forever. I am genuinely, and sincerely happy I was able to have my internship here. The team is filled with such amazing people (They are truly the building blocks of Unitary Fund) that I had the utmost pleasure of working with. Working here was nothing short of a great learning experience, promoting me to be a better worker, researcher, and of course, better learner. Thank you Unitary Fund!