Congratulations to CQT's two new NRF fellows

Troy Lee (left) and Joseph Fitzsimons (right), both Senior Research Fellows at CQT, have been awarded the prestigious NRF Fellowship.

Two CQT researchers have today been named recipients of Singapore's prestigious NRF Fellowship.

Joseph Fitzsimons and Troy Lee will each receive a research grant of up to SGD 3 million from Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF) to establish their own research groups. Troy is from CQT's Computer Science group and Joe from the Exploratory Initiatives group.

This year NRF has awarded 16 fellowships. Fellows are selected in a two-step process, with shortlisted candidates invited to spend a week in Singapore giving presentations and visiting research facilities. At the end of the week, the applicants are interviewed by the NRF Fellowship Evaluation Panel, an international panel of eminent scientific leaders. Troy and Joe's fellowships were announced in a ceremony at the NUS EduSports Auditorium.

NRF fellows receive a tenure-track appointment in one of Singapore's universities or research facilities. Both Troy and Joe say they want to remain affiliated with CQT and will be choosing which university to join.

Joe proposes to focus on developing techniques for verifying the correctness of quantum computations. How can we be sure that a quantum computation gives a correct result when the problem at hand is too computationally complex to solve by simulation? Joe aims to develop cryptographic techniques that can certify the outcome of a given quantum computation.

Troy will continue his work exploring the power of quantum computers, coming up with new algorithms and calculating the least amount of resources needed to solve particular problems. He will also study communication complexity, which looks at how much information — quantum or classical — two parties need to exchange in order to solve a problem.

Congratulations Joe and Troy!

• Here is the official announcement from NRF (pdf file), including short statements from the winners about their careers and research proposals.
• Media coverage of the fellowship awards in AsiaOne.

The NRF fellows, class of 2013, relax after being presented with their awards.