We are please to annouce that Xiu Yang, Associate Professor at Lehigh ISE, has received a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) award as part of a collaborative research project titled "Collaborative Research: Noise-Aware Optimization Algorithms for Hybrid Quantum Computing." The project, funded through NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) Computational Mathematics program, will run from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2029. The total award is approximately $300K, including $100K supporting Yang's research at Lehigh.
The project aims to develop new optimization algorithms that make hybrid quantum computing more reliable and scalable despite the significant noise and uncertainty present in today's quantum hardware. The research will create mathematically rigorous methods for training quantum algorithms using only noisy measurements, helping bridge the gap between theoretical advances and practical quantum applications. The resulting techniques will be tested on problems in quantum optimization, quantum machine learning, and scientific computing, with potential applications in artificial intelligence, molecular design, and computational biotechnology. The project will also produce open-source software, benchmark problems, and educational resources while supporting interdisciplinary training for undergraduate and graduate students.
Dr. Yang's research spans uncertainty quantification, scientific computing, physics-informed machine learning, and quantum computing. He received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to research and education, and his work is also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through collaborative research initiatives. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and previously served as a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The collaborative project is led by Baoyu Zhou, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the State University of Arizona, who earned his Ph.D. in Lehigh ISE in 2022 under the supervision of Professor Frank E. Curtis. As a doctoral student, Zhou received the 2022 Rossin College Stout Dissertation Award, recognizing the outstanding doctoral dissertation in Lehigh's P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. His continued collaboration with Lehigh ISE highlights the department's long-standing leadership in optimization and its growing impact on emerging fields such as quantum computing.
"Reliable optimization is essential for unlocking the potential of quantum computing," said Yang. "I'm excited to collaborate with Baoyu on developing algorithms that can make quantum technologies more practical and impactful."
