We’re excited to host in this interview Brian Goldsmith, who is awarded a UF Ambassadorship for his active role in the Unitary Fund community.

Meet Brian

Q: How did you learn about Unitary Fund?

Brian: During a series of workshops put on by Zapata Computing, error mitigation was explored in which we used Mitiq for zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE). Later when looking to engage in an open source project, I looked closer into Mitiq and found the Unitary Fund.

Q: Tell the community a bit about yourself. For example, how you got into quantum and your current interests.

Brian: After 14 years as a software support engineer at IBM, I went back to school to get a Master’s in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University. During my studies, I took an Introduction to Quantum Computing course which sparked my interest in the field. I have enjoyed each aspect of quantum computing that I have been exposed to including error mitigation, simulation, and resource estimation. Outside of quantum computing, I am married to a high school science teacher and we have two boys and a dog.

Q: What’s the first thing you did within the Unitary Fund community? What’s the thing you’re most proud of that you’ve been involved in?

Brian: After lurking for some time, I opened and worked on a pull request (PR) related to installing Mitiq with z-shell. Since the PR consisted of adding quotes to a single line of documentation, it was a gentle introduction to contributing. I am quite proud of recent work done simplifying the expectation_estimation_shadow function in the classical shadows protocol in Mitiq. The protocol is based on the idea of shadow tomography, which is a technique for reconstructing a quantum state from a small number of measurements. Though there were some complications, I enjoyed the challenge and appreciated the assistance and guidance from the team (including Andrea, Min, and Nate.)

Q: What do you like most about Unitary Fund? What suggestions do you have for folks to get involved?

Brian: While the work by the Unitary Fund is fantastic, it is the people and community that make it unique. From Nate, Misty, and Dan hanging out and talking with me at QCE23, to Andrea reviewing PRs and providing valuable suggestions, to Farrokh taking time to go over his Wednesday talk in more detail, to Nathan asking my opinion on the community calls, it is the people of Unitary Fund that make it special.

About the Ambassadors Program

The Unitary Fund Quantum Ambassadors program recognizes individuals that are directly addressing the challenges of the growing quantum community. Unitary Fund Quantum Ambassadors bring together their peers to learn new skills, develop open source tools, and build the open quantum community all over the world.

Anyone is eligible to become an ambassador, and winners are nominated by the Unitary Fund team on a rolling basis. We expect that ambassadors exemplify Unitary Fund values and conduct themselves with respect whenever they engage with others within and outside the open quantum community.

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