Beatriz Yankelevich

Beatriz Yankelevich is researching waveguide quantum electrodynamics with the goal of developing a modular quantum computing architecture.

Yankelevich is currently a doctoral student in the Engineering Quantum Systems Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is advised by Professor William Oliver. While in her doctoral program, she plans to develop her interests in science policy and outreach. Yankelevich hopes to pursue a career in academia researching quantum computing. She is also supported by an MIT Presidential Fellowship and an National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Yankelevich received a bachelor’s in engineering physics with a concentration in quantum science and engineering from Stanford University in 2021. While at Stanford, she completed an honors research thesis in the field of condensed matter physics, advised by Professor Hari Manoharan. Her thesis, “Refraction of Dirac Fermions across Molecular Graphene Junctions,” received Stanford’s Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. Yankelevich completed a secondary honors thesis in science, technology, and society, titled “‘Fetal Viability’ in Supreme Court Abortion Cases: Probing the Boundary between Medicine and the Law,” advised by Professor Lochlann Jain.

While at Stanford, Yankelevich founded the Stanford Program for Inspiring the Next Generation of Women in Physics (SPINWIP), a free, virtual summer program for high school age women from underrepresented backgrounds in physics. During SPINWIP, now in its fourth year, students are taught Python and are introduced to modern physics research topics by Stanford students and professors.

After finishing her bachelor’s degree, Yankelevich took a gap year to work at Rigetti Computing, a start-up based in Berkeley, California, that develops superconducting quantum computers. There, Yankelevich worked on future generation quantum computing processors and in collaboration with the groups of Professor Marko Loncar at Harvard University and Professor Liang Jiang at the University of Chicago, with the goal of integrating superconducting qubits with microwave-optical transducers. For part of this collaboration, Yankelevich worked out of the Laboratory for Nanoscale Optics at Harvard University.