Genya Crossman is a lifelong learner passionate about helping people understand and use quantum computing to solve the world’s most complex problems.
So, she is excited that quantum computing is in the spotlight this year. UNESCO declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. It’s also the 100th anniversary of physicist Werner Heisenberg’s “On the Quantum-Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relationships,” the first published paper on quantum mechanics.
Crossman, an IEEE member, is a quantum strategy consultant at IBM in Germany. As a full-time staff member, she coordinates and manages five working groups focused on developing quantum-based solutions for near-term problems in health care and life sciences, materials science, high-energy physics, optimization, and sustainability.
She attended the sixth annual IEEE Quantum Week, held from 31 August to 5 September in Albuquerque. This year’s event, also known as the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering, marked the first time that the IBM– and community-created working groups’ experts and collaborators publicly presented their research together.
“We got great feedback and information about identifying common features across groups,” Crossman says. “The audience got to hear real-life examples to understand how quantum computing applies to different scenarios and how it works.”
Crossman understands the importance of sharing research more than most because she works at the intersection of quantum computing research and practical application. The quantum field might seem intimidating, she says, but you don’t need to understand it to use a quantum computer.
“Anyone can use one,” she says. “And if you know programming languages like Python, you can code a quantum computer.”
The basics of quantum computing
IBM has a long-standing history with quantum computing. IEEE Member Charles H. Bennett, an IBM Fellow, is called the father of quantum information theory because he wrote the first notes on the subject in 1970. In May 1981, IBM and MIT held the first Physics of Computation Conference.
“Quantum computing is often used to describe all quantum work,” including quantum science and quantum technology, Crossman says. The field involves a variety of technologies, including sensors, meteorology, and communications.
Classical computers use bits, and quantum computers use quantum bits, called qubits. Qubits can exist in more than one state simultaneously (both one and zero), known as the ability to exist in “superposition.”
Computers using qubits can store and process highly complex information and data faster and more efficiently, possibly using significantly less energy than classical computers.
With so much power and processing ability, quantum computers are complex and still not fully understood. Engineers are working to make quantum computing more accessible to everyone, so more people can understand how to work with the technology, Crossman says.
Inspired by her father and IEEE
Growing up in the North Shore of Boston, Crossman spent many summer mornings poring over the latest issues of IEEE Spectrum and Scientific American with her older sister. Her father, Antony Crossman, is an electrical and electronics engineer and an IEEE life member. He often discussed science and engineering concepts with his daughters.
Looking back, Crossman says, she sees reading Spectrum as her first introduction to how research is presented.
“I loved reading about new research and what could be done with it,” she says. “It helped point me toward engineering as a career.”
When she enrolled at McGill University in Montreal in 2011 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in physics, her father gifted her an IEEE student membership.
“Montreal is a beautiful, creative city that’s also relatively easy to travel to from Boston within a day,” she says. “Plus, the school was known for its physics program.”
After two years, she dropped out and moved to Paris, where she worked in a café. A year later, in 2014, she enrolled in the physics degree program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
In the summer of 2016, Crossman’s undergraduate advisor, Professor Stéphane Willocq, recommended her for a research project in the Microsystems Technology Laboratory within MIT’s electrical engineering department.
“Quantum computing is often used to describe all quantum work, including quantum computing, quantum science, and quantum technology.”
“I had been conducting research” with Willocq, she says, “and he knew I was considering going into electrical engineering, so he suggested I apply for this summer research opportunity.”
As a research assistant, she examined carrier transport in transistors and diodes made with two-dimensional materials.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 2017, she initially planned to go straight to graduate school, she says, but she wasn’t sure what she wanted to focus on. A friend and former classmate from an undergraduate quantum mechanics course referred her to a quantum computing job opening at Rigetti Computing in Berkeley, Calif.
She was hired as a junior quantum engineer. She started by creating the predecessor to, and then the schema for, the company’s first device database. She then designed, modeled, and simulated quantum devices such as circuits for superconducting quantum computers, including some used in the first deployed quantum systems. She also managed the Berkeley fabrication facility.
In that role, she learned a great deal about electrical and microwave engineering, she says, and that introduced her to computational modeling. It led her to better understand practical applications of quantum computing, she says. Her newfound knowledge made her “want to learn why and how people use quantum technology,” she says, which is how she became interested in the end users’ needs.
To further her career, she left Rigetti in 2020 and moved to Germany to pursue a dual master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics through a joint program between the Delft University of Technology and the Technische Universität Berlin. When she first began her master’s program, IBM recruiters offered her two jobs, she says, but she declined because she wanted to finish her degree.
During her studies, she worked with her mentor Eliska Greplova, an associate professor at TU Delft, who invited Crossman to join her quantum matter and AI research group. Crossman learned about condensed matter, machine learning, and quantum learning, and she participated in discussions about the technologies’ implications.
Despite being a great experience, it ultimately led her to decide against pursuing a Ph.D., she says, because she enjoyed working in the industry and that’s where she wanted to be in the long run.
She had planned to focus her master’s thesis on quantum computing from the end user’s perspective, but she switched to writing about integrating topological properties onto superconducting hardware.
She graduated in 2022. In January 2023, she accepted a full-time position at IBM Research in Germany as a quantum strategy consultant, supporting enterprise clients. Since then, her job has changed to technical engagement lead, overseeing the five quantum working groups.
She is also part of the team that oversees the company’s responsible computing initiative. IBM defines responsible quantum computing as the type that’s “aware of its effects.” The company says it wants to ensure it develops and uses quantum computing in line with its principles.
Established in 2022 by IBM and researchers from other organizations, the working groups tackle near-term problems and look for quantum and interdisciplinary solutions in their area of focus, Crossman says.
The groups are community-driven, with researchers from both quantum and nonquantum backgrounds collaborating to identify key problems, decide what to pursue, and pool their expertise to fill gaps, allowing them to look at problems holistically, she says. The groups regularly publish papers and make them publicly available.
Crossman’s job is to support the researchers, locate resources, help them use the IBM ecosystem, and identify experts to answer niche questions. Her other focus is on the end users, the people who will employ the research emerging from the working groups. She says she seeks to understand their needs and how to best support them.
“I really enjoy quantum engineering and working with everyone because it’s such an interdisciplinary field,” she says. “It combines problem-solving with creativity. It’s really at an exciting stage of development.”
With so much momentum, Crossman says, she is eager to see where quantum technologies go next.
“When I started learning about quantum mechanics in undergrad, there wasn’t much information out there,” she says. “The beginning of my career was when the quantum computing industry was just getting started. I’m really grateful for that.”
Staying current on research
Being an IEEE member allows Crossman to stay updated on research across multiple fields, she says, and that’s important because most of them “are becoming much more interdisciplinary, especially quantum computing.”
She says she is looking forward to collaborating more with IEEE members working on quantum computing.
“I’ve always found IEEE useful,” she says. “I can learn about new research in my and other fields, and I really enjoyed attending this year’s Quantum Week.”
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