The N.E.T. Program Award Committee is honored to announce PhD candidate in Optics Yuping Mao as this year’s recipient of the third annual N.E.T. Award for Academic Excellence. For Mao, the N.E.T. Award represents “an important recognition of my work, and I will use the funds to attend seminars, purchase learning resources, and for transportation costs for exchanges and collaborations.”
Yuping Mao graduated this June with a PhD in Optics from ECNU’s State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy and will hold a lecture position at Huzhou University and continue on as a member of Associate Director of the NYU-ECNU Institute of Physics, Tim Byrnes’ lab. Her current work, “Measurement-based Deterministic Imaginary Time Evolution”, recently published in the internationally renowned journal Physical Review Letters focuses on developing techniques for quantum computers to solve many-body problems, under the direction of Professor Byrnes at NYU’s Quantum Computing Lab.
According to Mao, “my work is both theoretical and experimental. On the experimental side, we are making an atom chip quantum computer. On the theory side, we are working to develop quantum algorithms that are the software for our quantum computer.” As a member of the Quantum Computing Lab, “we are using a quantum many body system which uses atom ensembles to encode the information of a qubit to solve computation accuracy problems. Nowadays quantum error correction is considered to be the essential steps for quantum computation system.,” Mao states. It is the team's goal to bypass many of the challenges associated with quantum errors and obtain a more reliable quantum computer.
Mao’s journey toward her current research project began upon meeting Professor Byrnes and his team. “When I first began my studies, I thought that I just wanted to find a professor and a research area. But when I started working with [Professor Byrnes] and working here with the team I began to really find the beauty in the work. Professor Byrnes’ leadership and skill in the lab has been invaluable in helping Yuping to find the main points of focus. “At every step Professor Byrnes is inventing new things from top to bottom, always following his academic path. That’s why I wanted to work with him.”
Alongside Professor Byrnes, Mao also received important feedback from Postdoc research fellow, Dr. Valentin Ivannikov, especially when challenges frequently presented themselves. “Dr. Ivannikov always says, 99% is just the beginning. The final 1 % of the work is the most difficult part. That difficulty is usually emotional,” Yuping says. But Mao reminds us that teamwork in the lab and perseverance can pay off. “99% of the time you fail and must go back to the simulation and rebuild, but to overcome the emotional challenge, you must understand that failure is normal. That helps you find a purpose in all of your hard work. In the end, you feel like I can do this. I can feel the beauty of the complex world.”
As a member of N.E.T., Mao reflects on another important lesson from her studies. “The most important thing that NYU Shanghai provides to me is its outlook on the world. Throughout my entire educational career, I’ve never had as much contact with an international community as I do now. People from different places approach problems differently.” Especially, for Mao, when it comes to critical thinking. “Once, at a conference, I was asked, 'What’s your favorite paper from the past year?’ And it really made me think about how easily I can lose a holistic outlook on my work. In our educational system we are taught to be patient and focused and to dig into the knowledge, but for the critical thinking approach of how to consider problems and ideas from different perspectives, that’s what NYU Shanghai can offer.”
The N.E.T. Program Award Committee commend the hard work and determination that Yuping Mao has demonstrated as a student and wish to encourage the continued success of her research.