UC Merced graduate students Anuvetha Govindarajan and Jocelyn Ornelas-Munoz have each received a $25,000 fellowship from SandboxAQ, which creates solutions at the nexus of artificial intelligence and quantum technology — or AQ — to address some of the world's greatest challenges.
For the past six years, SandboxAQ has been forming connections between industry and academia to meet the rising demand for quantum- and AI-trained researchers and engineers. According to the company’s website, it has partnered “with over 30 corporations, major universities and other educational institutions to build up a pool of tech talent and expand training in the field of artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.”
“SandboxAQ congratulates Anuvetha Govindarajan and Jocelyn Ornelas-Munoz on being named SandboxAQ Fellowship recipients. We look forward to following their research at UC Merced and supporting their future careers in quantum information science,” said Marianna Bonanome, head of External Education Programs at SandboxAQ. “SandboxAQ values collaborations with universities like UC Merced, with whom we partner to create engaging educational opportunities, increase interest and diversity in STEM education and careers, and expand the global quantum workforce.”
Govindarajan, a physics Ph.D. student from India, studies quantum optics and quantum computing with Professor Lin Tian. She has built a unique design to generate many-body entangled states — a system of many interacting particles — in optomechanical systems, which are robust against temperature and noise fluctuations.
“I am honored to receive the prestigious SandboxAQ fellowship. It is one of the few fellowships that international students are eligible to participate in,” Govindarajan said. “This fellowship will help me dedicate more time and resources to my research.”
She is working on quantum optimal control to study state-preparation in a finite-sized Jaynes-Cummings model lattice.
After graduation, she plans to seek opportunities in industry where she can transfer the skills she has developed at UC Merced as a physics researcher.
