Quantum Research Initiative

Eric Paley is the Massachusetts Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development. He is also a partner emeritus of Founder Collective, a seed-stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2008. During his tenure, he led early investments in major technology companies, including Uber, The Trade Desk, and Airtable.

Previously, Secretary Paley co-founded and served as CEO of Brontes Technologies, a 3D digital dental imaging company that was acquired by 3M in 2006. His investment success has earned him significant recognition, including five appearances on the Forbes Midas List, peaking as the #9 seed investor in 2020.

Steven Hubbard joined The Mass Tech Collaborative as the Program Director for the Quantum Initiative in January of 2025. He is focused on development of the quantum ecosystem in Massachusetts into a global technology hub through strategic investment of state funds and public-private partnerships.

Prior to MassTech, he worked in higher education for nearly 20 years as a physics professor and most recently as the Dean of STEM and Business at North Shore Community College in Danvers, MA where he managed lab renovations and launched new STEM Workforce Development initiatives. Steven is also a former R&D Manager at General Electric developing optical grade polymers for use in data storage and display. He holds the PhD in Physics from Case Western Reserve University where he studied optical and photonic properties of matter.

Zhurun "Judy" Ji is an Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT, where her group studies quantum and microwave sensing of quantum materials.

She was previously a Panofsky Fellow at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2024–2025), and before that a Stanford Science Fellow and Urbanek-Chodorow Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford. She received her B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2015 and her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021, and is a recipient of the Boeing Quantum Creators Prize.

Dr. Travis L. Scholten is a leading voice on the future of advanced computation in the United States, working at the nexus of advanced computing paradigms -- such as quantum, AI, and HPC -- and the public missions that depend on them. He shapes national‑level conversations on how converged compute architectures can strengthen America’s scientific leadership, economic competitiveness, and long‑term innovation capacity. His work translates frontier research into mission‑aligned insights for government, industry, and national laboratories, and he frequently engages multi‑stakeholder communities on opportunities at the intersection of technology, policy, and national strategy.

Dr. Scholten has led collaborative efforts in quantum benchmarking and applications, and he plays an active role in strengthening the national quantum ecosystem. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Unitary Foundation and on the Ecosystem Advisory Board for Fermilab’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center , helping guide research and talent development across the field. He is also the creator of The Quantum Stack, a widely read Substack analyzing trends in quantum and advanced computing. As a non‑resident fellow with the Foundation for American Innovation -- and former Policy Hacker Fellow -- he explores how emerging compute technologies can advance U.S. prosperity, resilience, and scientific opportunity.

Dr. Scholten earned his PhD in Physics from the University of New Mexico and his BS in Physics from Caltech.

Professor Devesh Tiwari is the Associate Vice Provost for Research Computing at Northeastern University and the director of the Goodwill Computing Lab, where his research group is focused on making large-scale classical and quantum computing systems faster, cheaper, and environmentally more sustainable. Before joining academia, he worked as a research staff scientist at the Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Devesh’s research group is recognized for pioneering research and translational contributions in the areas of HPC, quantum computing, and environmentally sustainable computing — often first-of-its kind experimental demonstration, production deployment, and large-scale open-source community datasets. His group's research has been recognized with multiple awards including NSF CAREER Award on quantum computing, Dependability Rising Star Award, IEEE TCSC MCR Excellence in Research Award, Facebook/Meta Faculty Research Award, HPE Faculty Excellence Award, Northeastern COE Faculty Fellow Award.

For his teaching and mentoring efforts, he was awarded the Northeastern COE Martin Essigmann Outstanding Teaching Award, and Professor of the Year by the Northeastern University IEEE student chapter and has consistently received near-perfect teaching evaluation scores. His recent PhD students graduates are tenure-track faculty members at top CS departments in the country (e.g., Rice University, and University of Utah). He is the steering committee co-chair of ACM HPDC, and was elected to be on the SC (Supercomputing) steering committee. His community leadership has been recognized with the IEEE TPDS Editorial Excellence Award (twice) and IEEE TCPP Outstanding Service and Contributions Award.

Michael Warnock is a scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, RI. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Physics department at Brown University, where he investigates the time evolution of quantum systems under arbitrary time evolution.

Since joining NUWC in February 2015 as a member of Code 15, Mr. Warnock first participated in the fabrication of a majority of the underwater calibration transducers in the Underwater Sound Reference Division (USRD). Since transitioning to Code 4541 in March 2019, Mr. Warnock performed modeling and simulation of submarine components to support shock qualification and structural evaluation acceptance. Furthermore, since 2018, he has been PI and Co-PI on previous research projects investigating quantum algorithms and quantum sensing. Mr. Warnock was a FY24 Recipient of the Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientist & Engineer of the Year, Emergent Scientist Award.