JILA News

JILA is proud to recognize a major milestone for quantum science and technology as Infleqtion, the quantum technology company founded by JILA Fellow and CU Boulder Professor Dana Anderson, has officially gone public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). 

During the fall semester of 2025, the JILA Association of Graduate Students (JAGS) put on four events for CU Boulder students, postdoctoral researchers, staff, and PIs, reaching over 250 community members.

On October 2nd, Oxford Ionics joined nearly 100 graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty from JILA, CU, and NIST to highlight some of their recent advancements in quantum computing in the third installment of the JILA Association of Graduate Students (JAGS) Industry Spotlight seminars. This seminar, given by Dr. David Allcock, highlighted the pivotal role that Boulder has played in forging the path towards large, fast, and robust quantum computing systems. 

On Monday, September 15th, 2025, MLB Marlins coach and former JILAn, Dr. Aaron Leanhardt, gave the first Life After JILA talk of the fall semester, with a record-breaking turnout for the seminar series. Over 60 JILAns, including PIs, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduate students, attended Dr. Leanhardt’s talk about his journey from academia to professional baseball.

JILA is proud to announce that Professor Dana Z. Anderson, JILA Fellow and Professor of Physics and Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been elected a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). 

Dr. Kai Li, a researcher in the Jun Ye Group, has been named as a recipient of the 2026 European XFEL Young Scientist Award. This prestigious honor is awarded annually to an early-career scientist who has made exceptional contributions through experiments conducted at the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL).

UNESCO named physicist Jun Ye to its Quantum 100 list—a catalogue of some of the top leaders around the world in the rapidly growing field of quantum science.

JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has once again been recognized as one of the world’s most influential scientists. For the 12th year in a row, Ye has earned a place on the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list, an honor reserved for researchers whose work ranks among the top 1% of citations globally across their fields.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a $625 million investment to advance the next phase of the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, a cornerstone of the National Quantum Initiative. This funding will support five centers dedicated to accelerating quantum technologies that promise transformative impacts on science, industry, and national security. JILA is proud to remain a key partner in QSA through the Q-SEnSE Center, which focuses on quantum sensing and precision measurement.

JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder are proud to announce that Professor Mathias Weber has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), for fundamental contributions to our understanding of molecular interactions and solvation effects in complex systems, obtained via elegant vibrational/electronic laser photodissociation spectroscopy of molecular and cluster ions in the gas phase.

JILA is proud to announce that Chuankun Zhang, a former graduate student in CU Boulder Physics professor and JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye’s research group, has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Boeing Quantum Creators Prize. This national honor recognizes early-career researchers whose work is propelling quantum science and engineering in bold new directions.

Dr. Surya Pratap Deopa, Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of JILA Fellow and MCDB Professor Tom Perkins, has been honored with the 2025 BioFrontiers Outstanding Contribution Award. 

JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Jun Ye has been awarded a prestigious 2025 AB Nexus seed grant for his pioneering work in quantum sensing technologies. 

JILA is delighted to welcome Dr. Taeho Ryu as an Associate Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Nobel Prize winner Eric Cornell honors his friend and colleague, Jun Ye, in the Coloradan.

On Wednesday, May 14th, over 115 students, postdoctoral researchers, staff, research scientists, and principal investigators attended the second Industry Spotlight Seminar, surpassing the record-breaking attendance from the inaugural event in this series the month prior. This seminar, hosted by JAGS, featured two current employees (and former JILAns) from Atom Computing, a Colorado quantum computing company founded in 2018 by JILA alumni and former Ye group member, Dr. Benjamin Bloom. 

Former JILA graduate student Olivia Krohn was awarded a distinguished fellowship at Sandia National Laboratories.

Professor Cindy Regal, Baur-SPIE Chair at JILA, has been named a 2025 Brown Investigator by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.

In a thrilling display of scientific communication and creativity, Thi Hoang, a graduate student at JILA, emerged victorious at the inaugural Quantum Science Slam held during the CLEO 2025 conference. This new event, designed to bring cutting-edge science to life for a broader audience, saw participants deliver engaging and entertaining 10-minute presentations on their research.

On April 16^th, over 100 graduate students, undergraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff, research scientists, and PIs attended the first JILA Association of Graduate Students (JAGS) Industry Spotlight.