Understanding Quantum Computing with Professor Peter Shor and Professor William Oliver

Peter Shor is Morss Professor of Applied Mathematics since 2003, and Chair of the Applied Mathematics Committee since 2015. He received the B.A. in mathematics from Caltech in 1981, and the Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT in 1985, under the direction of Tom Leighton. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at MSRI, he joined AT&T. He was a member of its Research staff, 1986-2003. He joined the MIT faculty in applied mathematics as full professor in 2003. Professor Shor's research interests are in theoretical computer science: currently on algorithms, quantum computing, computational geometry and combinatorics. In 1998, Peter Shor received the Nevanlinna Prize and the International Quantum Communication Award. He also received the Dickson Prize in Science from Carnegie-Mellon in 1998.

He was awarded the Gödel Prize of the ACM and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1999. He received the King Faisal International Prize in Science in 2002, and was named one of Caltech's Distinguished Alumni in 2007. He is a member of the National Academy of Science (2002), and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011). In 2017, Professor Shor received the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. He also received the 2017 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award, jointly with Charles Bennett, Igor Devetak, Aram Harrow, and Andreas Winter for the paper "The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem and Resource Tradeoffs for Simulating Quantum Channels" which appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 60, no. 5, pp. 2926–2959, May 2014. In 2018, Peter received the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award, for Outstanding Contributions to Communications Technology. He also received the 2018 Micius Quantum Prize in April 2019.

Peter Shor's interests are currently algorithms, quantum computing, computational geometry and combinatorics.

William D. Oliver is jointly appointed Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Professor of Physics, and Lincoln Laboratory Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He serves as the Director of the Center for Quantum Engineering and as Associate Director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics. He is a Principal Investigator in the Engineering Quantum Systems Group (MIT campus) and the Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems Group (MIT Lincoln Laboratory).  He provides programmatic and technical leadership targeting the development of quantum and classical high-performance computing technologies. Will’s research interests include the materials growth, fabrication, design, and measurement of superconducting qubits, as well as the development of cryogenic packaging and control electronics involving cryogenic CMOS and single-flux quantum digital logic. Will is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He serves on the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, the US Committee for Superconducting Electronics, and is an IEEE Applied Superconductivity Conference (ASC) Board Member. Will received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, his M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and B.A. in Japanese from the University of Rochester (NY).