Fall 2025 Physics Careers Seminar Series Opens with Talk by Alumnus Dr. Benjamin Villalonga Correa from Google

The Fall 2025 Physics Careers Seminar series opens on Thursday, September 11 with a talk by alumnus Dr. Benjamin Villalonga Correa from Google , who will talk about "Quantum Computing in Industry as a Student and as a Full-Time Researcher", at 12:00 p.m. in 204 Loomis (Interaction Room). Details of Dr. Villalonga Correa's seminar are given below.

Time: 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 11, 2025

Location: 204 Loomis (Interaction Room). A Zoom link will also be forwarded to the Illinois Physics Grad Student email list. For a copy of the link, please contact Lance Cooper (slcooper@illinois.edu).

Title: Quantum Computing in Industry as a Student and as a Full-Time Researcher

Speaker: Dr. Benjamin Villalonga Correa, Research Scientist, Google 

Abstract: In this informal talk, I will share my experience transitioning from the physics PhD program to a research scientist position at Google’s Quantum AI team, where I have spent the last five years. While using my own path as a lens, I will try to convey a broader picture that will be informative for students pursuing careers in quantum computing. The talk will also cover concrete opportunities for students on the Google team (internships, fellowships, student researcher appointments, etc.) and include an overview of our group's research directions, all of which serve a purpose in the endeavor of building a large and useful error-corrected quantum computer. The work we and others do covers a wide spectrum of experimental and theoretical physics, engineering, computer science, and more.

Bio: I received my PhD from the UIUC in 2020 under Professor Bryan Clark, developing and utilizing numerical techniques to study many-body physics. After obtaining my degree I joined Google’s Quantum AI team, where I have used numerical techniques over a variety of problems, including the study of near-term applications of early quantum computers, the design of better decoders for quantum error correction experiments, and the analysis of fault-tolerant quantum algorithms for optimization.

You can see the rest of the Fall 2025 Physics Careers Seminar series here: https://physics.illinois.edu/calendar/careers-seminar