Our History

Every talk, workshop, and event since OUQIS was founded in 2019

Founded in September 2019 by Maria Violaris, OUQIS started with over 100 members in its first term. From panel discussions with Oxford professors to Q&As with Scott Aaronson, from hands-on Qiskit workshops to pub trips, we've built a community that makes quantum information accessible and exciting.

Visit our original website →

Past Termcards

Hilary 2026 9 events

▾
W1

Quantum Optical Wireless Communications

Prof Dominic O'Brien (University of Oxford)
Professor of Engineering Science at Oxford and Director of the UK National Hub in Quantum Computing and Simulation.
Mon 19 Jan · Vernon Harcourt Room
W1

Scalable Quantum Networks and Distributed Quantum Information Processing

Prof Andreas Reiserer (Technical University of Munich)
Professor of Quantum Networks at TUM, researching erbium dopants in silicon for scalable quantum networking at telecom wavelengths.
Wed 21 Jan · Online
W2

Towards Global Quantum Communications Networks: Data Security in the Quantum Era

Prof Mohsen Razavi (University of Leeds)
Professor of Quantum Communications at Leeds, coordinated the EU Innovative Training Network QCALL. PhD from MIT.
Wed 28 Jan
W4

Integrated Quantum Photonics: from Single-Photon Sources to Bio-Inspired Devices

Dr Luca Sapienza (University of Cambridge)
Associate Professor in Quantum Engineering at Cambridge, leading the Integrated Quantum Photonics research group. Fellow and Director of Studies at Christ's College.
Fri 13 Feb
W5

Quantum Processing of Light for Computer Vision and Superresolution Microscopy

Prof Alexander Lvovsky (University of Oxford)
Professor of Physics at Oxford specialising in quantum optics and optical computing, with research on optical neural networks for energy-efficient computation and sensing.
Fri 20 Feb
W6

Satellite Platform for Optical Quantum Communications (SPOQC)

Dr Ross Donaldson (Heriot-Watt University)
Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt specialising in optical and quantum communication technologies. Also Chief Scientific Officer at Lumino Technologies.
Mon 23 Feb
W6

Careers in Quantum Tech Panel

Five quantum technology professionals
An informal panel discussion with quantum professionals across academia, startups, and industry. In collaboration with Oxford Physics Society.
Week 6
W7

Optical Quantum Technologies Using Room Temperature Solid-State Quantum Systems

Prof Tobias Vogl (Technical University of Munich)
Professor at TUM, coordinator of the QUICK3 space mission. Develops quantum emitters in 2D hexagonal boron nitride for room temperature quantum photonics.
Wed 4 Mar
W8

Random Quantum Circuits and Noise Dynamics

Dr Emilio Onorati (UCL)
Mathematical physicist specialising in foundational structures of quantum generators. PhD from Freie Universitat Berlin, currently postdoc at TUM.
Thu 12 Mar

Michaelmas 2025 5 events

▾
W2

Graduate Flashtalks: Quantum Machine Learning

Douglas Spencer & Samuel Nicholls (University of Oxford)
Oxford DPhil researchers presenting on adaptive quantum conformal prediction and quantum-enhanced machine learning under realistic hardware noise.
Fri 24 Oct · Sibthorpe Room, St Hilda's College
W3

On Locality, Bell, and Cryptography

Sam Kuypers (Oxford), Charles Alexandre Bédard (ÉTS), Prof Claude Crépeau (McGill)
Kuypers on local realism and information theory; Bédard on explaining Bell locally; Crépeau on experimental relativistic zero-knowledge proofs. Crépeau is a pioneer in quantum cryptography.
Mon 27 Oct · Audrey Wood Seminar Room, Physics Department
W6

Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday's Tomorrow

Nicole Yunger Halpern (NIST / QuICS, University of Maryland)
Theoretical physicist pioneering "quantum steampunk", merging quantum information with 19th-century thermodynamics. Author of the book by the same name.
Mon 17 Nov · Simpkins Lee Room, Beecroft Building · Co-hosted with Oxford Physics
W6

An Introduction to Quantum Error Mitigation

Dr Zhenyu Cai (University of Oxford)
EPSRC Quantum Technologies Fellow in Engineering Science at Oxford, leading the Quantum Error Control research group.
Fri 21 Nov · Vernon Harcourt Room, St Hilda's College
W8

Quantum Fault-Tolerant Constructions

Prof Aleks Kissinger (University of Oxford)
Professor of Quantum Computing at Oxford. Co-author of "Picturing Quantum Processes" and developer of the ZX Calculus.
Mon 1 Dec · Lady Brodie Room, St Hilda's College

Trinity 2025 2 events

▾
W2

The Role of Entropy in Reconstructing Physical Theories

Dr Gabriele Carcassi (University of Michigan)
Physicist leading the "Assumptions of Physics" project, deriving physical laws from minimal physically meaningful starting points.
Wed 7 May · Simpkins Lee Room, Beecroft Building
W8

Debate: Time's Arrow, the Universe, and Quantum Reality

Julian Barbour & Maria Violaris
Barbour is an independent physicist and author of "The End of Time", working on shape dynamics. Violaris is a quantum physicist at Oxford Quantum Circuits and OUQIS founder.
Tue 17 Jun · Beecroft Building

Hilary 2024 1 event

▾
W6

Graduate Flash Talks: Oxford x Princeton

Oxford & Princeton DPhil/PhD students
Joint session with Princeton Students in Quantum, featuring quantum research presentations from both universities.
Wed 21 Feb · Online

Hilary 2023 2 events

▾
W2

Building a Quantum Middleware Startup

Richard Givhan (CEO, Haiqu)
Co-founder and CEO of Haiqu, a quantum middleware company focused on circuit optimisation and error shielding. Stanford-trained engineer.
Wed 25 Jan · University College Lecture Theatre
W6

Graduate Flash Talks: Oxford x Princeton

Oxford & Princeton DPhil/PhD students
Joint session with Princeton Students in Quantum. Two students from each university gave 10-minute research presentations.
Tue 21 Feb · Online

Michaelmas 2022 6 events

▾
W1

Speaker Event

Ricky Young (COO, qBraid)
COO of qBraid, a quantum computing platform providing access to 24+ quantum devices and 18+ quantum SDKs.
Wed 12 Oct · Online
W2

Pizza Social

Wed 19 Oct · Department of Physics
W3

Uniting AI & Quantum Computing: Solving Post-Quantum Cryptography & More

Jack Hidary (CEO, SandboxAQ)
CEO of SandboxAQ and author of "Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach".
Wed 26 Oct · Corpus Christi College Auditorium
W4

UK Uni Quantum Chess: Intro & Kick-Off

Chess with a quantum twist: using quantum mechanics to defeat opponents and win prizes.
Wed 2 Nov
W6

British Telecom & Quantum Dice

Developments in quantum communication and a live demonstration of Quantum Dice's random number generator device.
Wed 16 Nov
W8

Speaker Event

Dr Ana Belén Sainz (ICTQT, University of Gdańsk)
Quantum foundations researcher investigating nonclassical physical theories and their information-processing applications.
Wed 30 Nov

Trinity 2022 5 events

▾
W2

Pizza Social

Wed 4 May · Grass in front of Natural History Museum
W3

Quantum Information in Many-Worlds

Prof David Deutsch (University of Oxford)
Pioneer of quantum computing, originator of foundational quantum algorithms, and champion of the many-worlds interpretation. 2023 Breakthrough Prize laureate.
Wed 11 May · Online
W4

Atom Computing & the Quantum Ecosystem

Denise Ruffner (CBO) & Robin Coxe (SVP Engineering), Atom Computing
Ruffner is a quantum industry leader and founder of Women in Quantum. Coxe leads control systems and software engineering at Atom Computing.
Wed 18 May
W5

Joint Event with Quantum Conversations

Wed 25 May · Online
W6

Flash Talks with Physics DPhil Students

Jan Ernst & Anicet Tibau Vidal (University of Oxford)
Ernst researches single-atom and single-photon quantum physics. Tibau Vidal works on locality of indistinguishable quantum systems.
Wed 1 Jun

Hilary 2022 5 events

▾
W2

Pub Trip

Thu 27 Jan · Royal Oak
W3

Quantum Thermodynamics

Prof Janet Anders (University of Exeter)
Quantum thermodynamicist specialising in non-equilibrium processes and the thermodynamic behaviour of quantum systems.
Thu 3 Feb · Online
W5

Workshop: The ZX Calculus

Lia Yeh (University of Oxford)
DPhil student in the Oxford Quantum Group, now a research engineer at Quantinuum, working on ZX-calculus applications to quantum error correction.
Thu 17 Feb
W6

Workshop: Intro to MBQC

Will Simmons (University of Oxford)
Researcher at Oxford working on measurement-based quantum computation.
Wed 23 Feb
W8

NMR Quantum Computing: Why Bother?

Prof Jonathan Jones (University of Oxford)
Professor of Physics at Oxford specialising in NMR quantum computation. Fellow of Brasenose College.

Michaelmas 2021 8 events

▾
W1

Reducing Runtime and Error in VQE Using Deeper and Noisier Quantum Circuits

Dr Peter Johnson (Zapata Computing)
Lead Research Scientist and co-founder of Zapata Computing, focused on variational quantum algorithms.
Wed 13 Oct
W2

Quantum Information Flash Talks

Lia Yeh, Ben Jaderberg, Matthew Wilson (Oxford), Jonathan Gorard (Cambridge)
Thu 21 Oct
W3

Pub Trip

Thu 28 Oct · Wolfson Bar
W4

The Development of Scalable Quantum Computers

Dr Richard Murray (ORCA Computing)
CEO and co-founder of ORCA Computing, a photonic quantum computing startup.
Thu 4 Nov
W5

NMR Quantum Computing: Why Bother?

Prof Jonathan Jones (University of Oxford)
Professor of Physics at Oxford. Fellow and Tutor at Brasenose College.
Thu 11 Nov
W6

GRW Theory and Other Spontaneous Collapse Theories

Prof Roderich Tumulka (University of Tübingen)
Professor of Mathematics specialising in GRW wave function collapse theory and relativistic quantum mechanics foundations.
Thu 18 Nov
W8

A Dynamical Cheshire Cat Effect and Implications for Counterfactual Communications

Prof Sandu Popescu, FRS (University of Bristol)
World-leading expert in quantum information theory. Discovered Popescu-Rohrlich (PR box) correlations.
Wed 1 Dec
TBA

Additional Talks

Prof Bob Coecke · Dr Chiara Marletto
Coecke: Chief Scientist at Quantinuum, pioneered categorical quantum mechanics. Marletto: Research Fellow developing constructor theory with David Deutsch.

Trinity 2021 8 events

▾
W1

Quantum Information Flash Talks

Joseph Tindall, Sam Kuypers, Simone Rijavec (Oxford)
Thu 29 Apr
W2

Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing in Biased Noise Architectures

Dr Earl Campbell (AWS / University of Sheffield)
VP of Quantum Science at Riverlane. Leading expert in quantum error correction.
Thu 6 May
W3

The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Prof Simon Saunders (University of Oxford)
Professor of Philosophy of Physics at Oxford and Fellow of Merton College.
Mon 10 May
W4

Making Sense of Quantum Theory: The Role of Relations and Information

Prof Carlo Rovelli (Centre de Physique Théorique de Luminy)
Founder of loop quantum gravity theory and author of "Seven Brief Lessons on Physics".
Tue 18 May
W4

Talk

Dr Alba Cervera-Lierta (University of Toronto)
Senior Researcher at Barcelona Supercomputing Center working on quantum machine learning.
Thu 20 May
W5

The de Broglie-Bohm Theory as a Rational Completion of Quantum Mechanics

Prof Jean Bricmont (Catholic University of Louvain)
Professor at UCLouvain working on quantum mechanics foundations and a proponent of Bohmian mechanics.
Thu 27 May
W6

Talk

Dr Dave Bacon, VP of Software (IonQ)
Former senior software engineer at Google's quantum team. Co-inventor of the Bacon-Shor Code.
Thu 3 Jun
W7

Talk

Prof Nicolas Brunner (University of Geneva)
Professor in the Quantum Theory group at Geneva, researching quantum entanglement and nonlocality.
Thu 10 Jun

Hilary 2021 7 events

▾
W1

Quantum Information Flash Talks

Cameron Booker, Lewis Anderson, Maria Violaris (Oxford)
Thu 21 Jan
W2

Interpreting the Quantum

Emily Adlam (University of Cambridge)
Researcher working on quantum mechanics foundations and philosophy of physics.
Thu 28 Jan
W3

24th Conference on Quantum Information Processing

All week · Online at mcqst.de/qip2021
W4

Quantum Steampunk: Quantum Information Meets Thermodynamics

Nicole Yunger Halpern (Harvard University)
Theoretical physicist at NIST and QuICS who pioneered the field of "quantum steampunk".
Thu 11 Feb
W6

Talk

Prof Juan Ignacio Cirac (Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics)
Director at MPQ. Pioneer of ion trap quantum computation and quantum simulation.
Thu 25 Feb
W7

Talk

Prof Mikhail Lukin (Harvard University)
Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor at Harvard. Co-Director of the Harvard Quantum Initiative.
Thu 4 Mar
W8

Introduction to Topological Quantum Computing

Prof Jason Alicea (Caltech)
William K. Davis Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, specialising in topological quantum computing.
Fri 12 Mar

Michaelmas 2020 8 events

▾
W1

Quantum Information Flash Talks

Pei Zeng (Tsinghua), Brandon Severin (Oxford), Anicet Tibau Vidal (Oxford)
Wed 14 Oct
W2

A Post-Quantum Theory of Classical Gravity

Prof Jonathan Oppenheim (University College London)
Professor at UCL developing a "postquantum theory of classical gravity" proposing spacetime may not be quantum.
Wed 21 Oct
W3

In Conversation with Denise Ruffner

Denise Ruffner (Cambridge Quantum Computing)
VP of Business Development at IonQ. Former Chief Business Officer of Cambridge Quantum Computing.
Mon 26 Oct
W4

Neural Network Quantum States

Prof Giuseppe Carleo (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
Professor and head of the Computational Quantum Science Laboratory at EPFL. Pioneered neural network quantum states.
Thu 5 Nov
W4

From Entanglement to Secure QKD

Prof Xiongfeng Ma (Tsinghua University)
Professor at Tsinghua's Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, leading quantum cryptography research.
Sun 8 Nov
W5

Visualizing Quantum States and Operators

Piotr Migdal & Klem Jankiewicz (Quantum Flytrap)
Creators of Quantum Flytrap, interactive quantum mechanics visualisation tools.
Thu 12 Nov
W6

Introduction to Quantum Computing

Jessica Pointing (University of Oxford)
PhD student in Physics at Oxford. Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science.
Wed 18 Nov
W7

Internship / Quantum Software Talk

Riverlane
Thu 26 Nov

Trinity 2020 7 events

▾
W1

Quantum Information Flash Talks

Hlér Kristjansson, Augustin Vanrietvelde
Wed 29 Apr
W2

Journal Club: "Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself"

Anthony Thompson
Wed 6 May
W3

Quantum Gravity Talk

Dr Chiara Marletto (University of Oxford)
Research Fellow at Wolfson College developing constructor theory with David Deutsch.
Sat 16 May
W4

Quarantine Talk

Prof Alán Aspuru-Guzik (University of Toronto)
Canada 150 Research Chair, co-founder of Zapata AI. Expert in quantum algorithms for molecular simulation.
Wed 20 May
W5

Quantum Coding Workshop

Ben Jaderberg (University of Oxford)
PhD from Oxford (2022) in quantum computing. Now at IBM Research UK.
W6

Journal Club

Wed 3 Jun
W7

Q&A with Scott Aaronson

Prof Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin)
Schlumberger Centennial Chair at UT Austin. ACM Prize winner for contributions to quantum computing theory.

Hilary 2020 1 event

▾
W8

Quantum Biology Panel Discussion

Prof Peter Hore, Dr Chiara Marletto, Prof Vlatko Vedral (Oxford)
Hore: physical chemist researching quantum biology and bird magnetoreception. Vedral: Professor of Quantum Information Science.
10 Mar · Magnetic sensing in birds, entangling bacteria, quantum search in DNA replication

Michaelmas 2019 Founding term

▾
W5

Inaugural Event: Non-Equilibrium Quantum Thermodynamics

Prof Vlatko Vedral (University of Oxford)
Professor of Quantum Information Science at Oxford. Published 500+ papers on quantum computing, cryptography, and thermodynamics.
6 Nov · Daubeny Lab, Magdalen College

Flash Talks

Three Oxford DPhil students
Daubeny Lab, Magdalen College · 15-minute whiteboard talks

Quantum Coding Workshop

Marie Curious collaboration · Oxford Physics Department
Quantum coding for 11-year-olds, part of the Marie Curious outreach programme.
15 Feb · Oxford Physics Department

Beyond the Talks

Coding Workshops

Hands-on "Coding a Quantum Computer" sessions, from beginner introductions to real IBM hardware.

Qiskit Workshops

Partnered with IBM Qiskit. 25+ participants learning quantum algorithms and running circuits on real quantum hardware.

Schools Outreach

"Quantum Coding for 11-year-olds" with Marie Curious at the Oxford Physics Department.

Lab Tours

Visits to quantum research facilities around Oxford. Seeing a real quantum experiment up close.

Social Events

Pub trips at the Royal Oak, an Emerging Tech Party, and plenty of informal gatherings.

YouTube Archive

Recordings from our Michaelmas 2020 industry talks are still available on YouTube.