Quantum World Congress has announced the University of Maryland will be the 2026 Lead Academic Partner for Quantum World Congress, taking place September 23–25, 2026 at The Hotel at the University of Maryland in College Park.

The partnership reflects both UMD’s longstanding leadership in quantum science and technology and Quantum World Congress’ move into the heart of Maryland’s rapidly expanding quantum ecosystem. Anchored by the University of Maryland, College Park has become a national center of gravity for quantum research, commercialization, workforce development, public-private partnership, and real-world deployment.

University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines has been a longtime champion of Quantum World Congress and a leading voice in advancing Maryland’s role as the Capital of Quantum. At Quantum World Congress 2025, Pines delivered a keynote outlining how UMD and its partners are turning decades of foundational research into practical quantum impact across computing, networking, materials, national security, life sciences, and workforce development.

“Quantum World Congress was created to connect the people and institutions moving quantum from promise to practice,” said George Thomas, CEO of Connected DMV. “There is no better place to host that conversation in 2026 than College Park, and no better academic partner than the University of Maryland. UMD has spent decades building the research strength, talent pipeline, industry partnerships, and regional momentum that this field needs now. President Pines has been one of the clearest and most consistent champions of that vision, and we are proud to recognize UMD as our Lead Academic Partner as Quantum World Congress comes to College Park.”

UMD is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of quantum scientists and engineers, with more than 350 researchers advancing quantum computing, cryptography, materials, networking, sensing, and related disciplines. Its quantum enterprise includes the Joint Quantum Institute and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, both established through partnerships with the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the NSF-funded Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation and Center for Quantum Networks; the Quantum Startup Foundry; the National Quantum Laboratory (QLab) at Maryland; and a broad array of other major research and innovation assets.

"We are tremendously excited and proud to welcome the global quantum community to the Capital of Quantum," said University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines. "We have spent decades advancing the science that is now driving one of the world's most dynamic quantum ecosystems. The Quantum World Congress is bringing together the world's leading minds to accelerate discovery, inspire the next generation of talent, and forge the partnerships that will shape the emerging quantum economy. There is no better place to host the Quantum World Congress than College Park: we aren't just discussing the future of quantum innovation here, we are actively constructing it."

The announcement comes during a period of major quantum momentum for Maryland and the Greater Washington region. In 2025, Governor Wes Moore launched the $1 billion Capital of Quantum initiative, anchored by UMD, to accelerate quantum research, commercialization, infrastructure, and workforce development. Later that year, DARPA and the State of Maryland announced the Capital Quantum Benchmarking Hub, based at UMD’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security in Discovery District Maryland, to test and evaluate quantum computing systems for national security and commercial applications.

Discovery District Maryland, located just steps from UMD’s main campus, has also become a growing home for quantum industry. Quantum computing firm IonQ, born from UMD research, is headquartered there, and the QLab provides researchers, students, startups, and partners with access to commercial quantum systems. Microsoft has also announced plans for a major new quantum research lab in Discovery District Maryland, further strengthening the region’s position as a hub for quantum innovation.

For Quantum World Congress, the move to College Park is both practical and symbolic. The 2026 event will bring global quantum leaders directly into the ecosystem where research institutions, federal partners, startups, established companies, investors, policymakers, and workforce pipelines are already converging.

“Quantum World Congress has always been about more than showcasing technology,” Thomas added. “It is about building the partnerships, markets, policies, and talent systems that allow quantum technologies to make real impact. UMD and College Park represent exactly that kind of ecosystem: world-class science, public-sector leadership, commercial momentum, and a deep commitment to preparing the next generation.”

Quantum World Congress 2026 will convene leaders across industry, government, academia, finance, national security, workforce, and economic development for three days of keynotes, panels, international programming, startup engagement, policy conversations, technology demonstrations, and partnership-building.

As Lead Academic Partner, the University of Maryland will help shape QWC 2026’s academic and research presence, connect global attendees with Maryland’s quantum ecosystem, and highlight the role of universities in translating quantum discovery into economic growth, public benefit, and real-world deployment.

Registration for Quantum World Congress 2026 is open now. Secure your seat at quantumworldcongress.com.

Original story: Quantum World Congress Announces the University of… | UMD Right Now

This fall, when all the final system checks are done and the countdown ticks to the final second, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will blast off the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center—and no one will be more geeked than Jackie Townsend (B.S. ’94, physics).

“Nothing matches the pride and terror of the moment of launch,” Townsend explained. “Even for me, who does science missions—it's like watching your kid graduate and worrying they're going to trip as they walk across the stage. I will be crying. It will be a magnificent moment.”

For Townsend, Roman is the latest milestone in a 30-plus-year NASA career that included groundbreaking Hubble missions, countless spaceship materials challenges, complex weather satellite collaborations and a host of discoveries. Recently named project manager for the Roman mission, after spending more than 15 years as deputy project manager, Townsend deliberated over every detail of one of NASA’s most ambitious efforts ever, a scientific adventure that will explore the universe in ways never possible before.

“What most excites me? We’re going to record or image more than 20 billion celestial objects over the life of this mission. And when you record 20 billion of something, you’ll capture 20 thousand, one-in-a-million events—phenomena we’ve never seen before,” Townsend said. “That’s what I love about Roman. We're going to do the science that we were designed to do spectacularly well—and we’re going to find untold new areas to explore.”

Wrong turn, right career

Space wasn’t part of Townsend’s original career plan. Jackie Townsend with the Roman Space Telescope at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Photo courtesy of Jackie Townsend.

“When I graduated from high school, I didn’t know that I was any good at math or science, and I first went to college to study psychology,” she said. “But I found I was really bored by psychology. It did not inspire me to try harder, so after my first year, I quit.”

Townsend spent the next three years job-hopping, from farmhand to receptionist to retail, and along the way, she realized she needed a challenge, a career path that would make a difference in the world and inspire her to try so hard that she wouldn’t be afraid to fail. The answer was physics.

“I thought back to high school—what was a class I really enjoyed even though it challenged me? For me, that was physics,” she recalled. “I decided then I was going back to school.”

A few years—and many community college physics courses—later, Townsend transferred to the University of Maryland, building a strong foundation that set the stage for her future.

“At Maryland, I realized that what it was doing was teaching me how to think,” she said. “The physics degree was teaching me to think through how to solve complex problems, and that’s obviously an everyday occurrence in my job at NASA today.”

Townsend connected with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and had the opportunity to conduct research there as a student.

“I didn't even know Goddard existed until I met people at Maryland who worked with Goddard. The physics department worked with me to carve out a program where I was part-time working and part-time going to school,” Townsend explained. “Even as a co-op, I had samples that had flown in space, and we were working at Goddard to characterize what had changed in those materials from their exposure to space. The connection between what was happening in the classroom and the hands-on work that I was doing at Goddard was just magnificent. It was inspirational to me.”

Blankets, cameras and sunshields in space

After graduation, Townsend’s co-op experience landed her a full-time job at Goddard as a materials engineer, where she troubleshot materials NASA was sending into space.

“I had the greatest first boss, who was really a teacher disguised as a materials engineer, and he was one of the people who pioneered how we need to test these materials and understand them if we're going to use them in space applications,” Townsend said. “He had me working on contamination control and broader space environmental effects. I had studied solid-state physics stuff at Maryland, and I learned a bunch more at Goddard, so I was becoming recognized as an up-and-coming expert in the effects of the space environment on materials.”

As her NASA career continued, Townsend’s technical expertise and her knack for solving problems made a lasting impact. She contributed to three Hubble servicing missions, improving designs to prevent cracking in the thermal blankets that protect Hubble’s delicate instruments and fine-tuning Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. She later collaborated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on new weather satellites and contributed to the sunshield design for the James Webb Space Telescope.

“The Webb has this tennis court-sized sunshield, which is made of these very thin film materials—it’s like a mylar balloon or a potato chip bag. And because of my work on Hubble, I got to work with the Webb folks to define how they would test the materials to determine which ones would survive the radiation environment where they were going,” Townsend recalled. “I was able to take what I had learned and use it to help shape the choices they made for Webb.”

Preparing for launch

A contributor to the Roman telescope mission as early as 2010, Townsend became the mission’s deputy project manager in 2020. Now as project manager, she’s charged with ensuring that all of NASA’s plans, people and systems are on track for Roman’s planned launch this fall.

“We plan to launch on August 30th from the Kennedy Space Center,” she said. “All of the observatory is complete and went through environmental testing with excellent performance. The team spent May and early June doing what we call the final closeouts. Team members go through pulling off test articles that don’t fly, like accelerometers and metrology targets. The solar arrays, aperture cover and high-gain antenna were each deployed and stowed for the final time here on the ground. In mid-June, the whole observatory is installed into a big shipping container, put on a NASA barge and tugged down to Kennedy Space Center. After that, we have a little over two months’ work to get it onto the launch vehicle and ready for launch on August 30.”

The Roman mission will offer virtually limitless opportunities to investigate a wide range of astrophysics topics, building a massive data archive that will allow scientists to identify and study 100,000 exoplanets, hundreds of millions of galaxies and billions of stars. Townsend believes that keeping this Roman mission on track and on budget will pave the way for even more ambitious missions in the future.

“I'm not a scientist like the Ph.D.s that will use Roman data to do that groundbreaking science, but I am a world-class technical project manager and space architect. This amazing team not only enabled Roman by charting this path, we enabled what's to come. We will be allowed to tackle new, incredibly ambitious missions in the future because of the way we executed on Roman,” Townsend said. “And, to circle all the way back, that's the same problem-solving I learned in the University of Maryland physics department. That same way of thinking about how to tackle really complex problems in a methodical, logical, systemic way is how Roman delivered.”

And for Townsend, whose career in space has been nothing short of stellar, this mission could be the most memorable ever.

“I feel like all the missions I've worked on have been different—kind of like my path to physics and my path to NASA. It’s been this wild ride I never could have predicted or planned. I got here just hanging on and digging into work the problems and get the job done,” she said. “The Roman observatory is fantastic, and it’s going to do groundbreaking, earth-shattering, universe-defining science, and that is really exciting.”

Original story: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/Jackie-townsend-roman-space-telescope-physics-mission

When Sylvester James Gates III (B.S. ’15, biological sciences) graduates from the University of Maryland with his Ph.D. in biological sciences this month, it will be a family affair—and a homecoming. 

Sylvester grew up near College Park. His father, Distinguished University Professor of Physics Sylvester James Gates Jr., who goes by Jim, holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science and has been at UMD since 1984. As kids, Sylvester and his twin, Delilah Gates (B.S. ’15, physics; B.S. ’15, mathematics), spent their free days with their dad in the John S. Toll Physics Building. The Gates family after Sylvester's graduation. From left: Sylvester James Gates Jr., Sylvester James Gates III, Delilah Gates, Dianna Abney. Photo courtesy of Sylvester James Gates III.

“The university always felt like a second home to me,” Sylvester said. 

So it was no surprise that both twins chose to stay in College Park for their bachelor’s degrees and they both became scientists. 

After graduating from UMD, Delilah earned her Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 2021, where she studied black holes in space. She completed a Future Faculty in the Physical Sciences Fellowship at Princeton University and then returned to Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and a member of the Black Hole Initiative. 

Sylvester, meanwhile, spent a brief stint in graduate school at Duke University before returning to Maryland for his Ph.D., where he studied how brain cells communicate. Working with Physics Professor Wolfgang Losert, Sylvester’s Ph.D. research developed new, nontraditional ways to measure brain cell activity—for example, by monitoring ions, stress compounds and the cell’s internal skeleton. He argues that gaining a more holistic picture of how the brain works could lead to more powerful artificial neural networks for computing and better drug discovery for brain diseases. 

When Sylvester presented this work during his dissertation defense in April, his whole family came to campus to watch. This month, they’ll return once more to cheer him on as he walks across the graduation stage. The milestone marks the end of a challenging but rewarding graduate school journey. 

“I'm incredibly proud of Sylvester,” Delilah said. “He's an amazing guy, as both a scientist and a human.”

Two Science Terps Are Born

What exactly does a kid do when they’re dragged into a university physics building? Actually, quite a lot, Sylvester and Delilah said. 

They have fond childhood memories of playing with physics demonstrations, mingling with employees and learning Japanese from a department staff member. Delilah even recalls playing physicist—much like many kids play doctor—scribbling gibberish on her dad’s blackboard and notepads as she pretended to do complex calculations. 

In many ways, the twins took after their parents. Their mother, Dianna Abney, is a pediatrician, child abuse specialist and the health officer for Charles County, Maryland. Like the kids, one of their parents studies physics, and the other is in the life sciences. Still, neither kid felt pressured by their parents to be scientists. In fact, both twins played the clarinet and considered majoring in music at UMD. 

“Though I have been deeply passionate about reaching my wish of becoming a scientist starting at age 4—as is similar to the case of my wife, Dianna, whose wish to become a medical doctor began around age 8—we shared a belief that parents should provide a safe environment with some structure, but stay out of the children's lanes of determining their lives' ambitions,” Jim said. 

That’s not to say Jim and Dianna did not influence their children’s careers at all. They were friends with other doctors, professors, lawyers and people with advanced degrees. Being around them helped the twins understand what went into pursuing those career paths, Delilah said. And, they were always invited to chat with the adults. 

“A lot of things that some people might think are hard discussions about science, the universe, planets, biology and medicine were commonplace, because that's just the language my mom and dad spoke,” Sylvester said. 

He added that representation was important. 

“It never felt like science was unapproachable to me,” Sylvester said. “This is one of the reasons why I believe that representation matters. Having a father and mother who were, respectively, a physicist and a pediatrician, both doctors in their own right, made being a doctor seem like something that my sister and I could do.”

Diverging Disciplines

Now that they’re both scientists, the twins study the world on vastly different scales—Sylvester works on microscopic cells, while Delilah researches the vast cosmos. The two siblings always had distinct dispositions, Sylvester said. He was always more artsy, and his sister was more drawn to math. So, he’s not surprised their interests diverged. 

Delilah initially planned to study particle physics like her father, but after taking a cosmology class in graduate school, she became fascinated by black holes. She was drawn to the discipline’s strong mathematical framework, which, like particle physics, builds on concepts like field theory and general relativity. Now, as a theoretical physicist, she’s developing new ways to measure the spin of black holes—a question that has vast implications for understanding how galaxies form and evolve.  

As for Sylvester, when he went to Duke University, he was planning to study cancer for his Ph.D. But living away from Maryland for the first time, he experienced culture shock—from the slower pace of life and the distance from the community he had spent two decades developing. For a year and a half, he struggled with his mental health and imposter syndrome. 

“Then, I was like, ‘I cannot do graduate school at this point in time,’” Sylvester said. “So I came back to Maryland. Thankfully, I had great support, so I was able to rebuild my scientific confidence.” 

Growing Together by Moving Apart

It was difficult for Delilah to watch her twin struggle, but ultimately, it brought them closer. Until that point in their lives, they had lived close enough to see each other and speak regularly. But they had to learn to be there for each other now that they lived hundreds of miles apart. 

“Him having struggled taught us how to support each other in a new way,” Delilah said. “It was difficult at first learning to be in different places and on different timelines, but it taught us a new way to communicate and connect.” 

The Gates family in 2015.When Delilah faced her own challenges about halfway through graduate school, that bond was invaluable.

“I always say I don't think I'll have a midlife crisis because I went through graduate school. I was struggling quite a lot. I was having severe anxiety. And it was to the point I would cry every day, sometimes several times a day,” she said. “I remember I used to call Sylvester most mornings and talk to him on the way to work, because talking to him made me less anxious.”

After supporting each other through tough times, the twins are closer than ever. They’re best friends and speak every day, whether that’s through text messages, phone calls or wordless exchanges of memes. After watching Sylvester bounce back from his struggles, Delilah was overjoyed as she watched her brother finally defend his Ph.D. It was her first time watching him deliver a scientific lecture, and she noted how calm, cool and collected he was—and also how well-dressed. 

“He's so much more fashionable than me,” she said with a laugh. “He looked really sharp.”

Delilah got emotional as she recounted the day’s events. 

“I was the last one he shouted out in detail in his acknowledgments, and I just bawled. I couldn't contain my joy and pride. I was so happy for him,” she said. “Even thinking about it now, I get a little verklempt.” 

Their father felt the same way. 

“It would take me writing a magnum opus to really express my feelings in the defense,” Jim said.

Now that he’s completed his Ph.D., Sylvester is still figuring out what’s next. He’s open to academia, or maybe a career in government or industry. Wherever he lands, he wants to continue studying how the brain works, whether that means developing artificial neural networks for computing, medicines for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or interventions to help military veterans dealing with brain trauma. 

And although the twins’ physics professor dad never pushed either child to pursue science, he’s thrilled by their accomplishments now that they have chosen the path for themselves. 

“Raising them was amazing. My wife and I still say that there is nothing else in life that we have done that was more fun,” Jim said. 

It’s hard for him to find the words to describe how he feels witnessing his children’s success. So, he turns to something of a family heirloom—cherished words his father once shared with him. 

“After I became the John S. Toll Professor of Physics, my father said to me, ‘You have exceeded any and all expectations that your mother, Charlie, and I ever had of and for you,” Jim said. “My twins have accomplished that also for their parents.”

Research by Professor Maissam Barkeshli and colleagues has been selected by the International Congress of Basic Science (ICBS) as a recipient of the 2026 Frontiers of Science Award in Condensed Matter Physics. The paper cited was Symmetry fractionalization, defects, and gauging of topological phases by Barkeshli, Parsa Bonderson, Meng Cheng and Zhenghan Wang.Maissam Barkeshli

The Frontiers of Science Award, inaugurated in 2023 under the auspices of the ICBS, honors recent papers recognized for a major breakthrough in their respective fields and includes a nomination process and review by a panel of experts.

Awards will be presented at the International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing on August 9, 2026. 

Barkeshli has also received a Sloan Fellowship and an NSF Career Award, and was recently selected for a Simons Collaboration. 

Professor Kara Hoffman was named chair of the Department of Physics, effective July 1, 2026.Kara Hoffman. Photo courtesy of same.

“Kara Hoffman brings to this role a record of scholarly achievement and an understanding of the department's strengths and aspirations,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “As a longstanding member of our faculty, she is prepared to lead the department’s continued growth and success.”

The Department of Physics ranks No. 14 overall (and 5th among public institutions) in physics graduate programs according to U.S. News & World Report and has 50 tenured/tenure-track faculty members, nearly 600 students and annual research funding of over $30 million. 

“It is an honor to be chosen to chair a department of this prominence," Hoffman said. “The strength of the department derives from the talent of our faculty and students, the dedicated support of our staff, as well as our partnerships with some of the world’s preeminent research institutions.” 

Hoffman plans to continue recruiting outstanding faculty members and students and providing excellent opportunities outside the classroom for the large fraction of physics majors who conduct research.

“As chair, I look forward to supporting these activities, as well as looking for new opportunities and initiatives,” Hoffman added. “While these are challenging times for research funding, I believe we can emerge even stronger.”Kara Hoffman at the South Pole. Photo courtesy of same.

Hoffman, who joined UMD in 2004, serves as the principal investigator on the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that supports the analysis of data taken with the world’s largest neutrino telescope, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. She has been conducting research at the observatory since the construction of the telescope commenced in 2004. 

Scientists have used IceCube to discover a population of high-energy neutrinos originating from outside our galaxy and from within the Milky Way plane. In addition, IceCube has made several contributions to particle physics, including the first observation of the Glashow resonance. 

Hoffman’s research has focused on multimessenger astrophysics, which aims to correlate information across multiple telescopes—including optical, gamma-ray and gravitational-wave instruments—often in real time, to identify some of the most energetic objects in our universe and gain a deeper understanding of the physical processes that drive them. 

In addition, Hoffman received an NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant that funded the construction of a next-generation neutrino array, the Askaryan Radio Array, also at the South Pole. The array is one of a few instruments pioneering a new detection technique that would extend the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to higher energies.

Hoffman has held various leadership roles at UMD, including as director of the Center for Experimental Fundamental Physics (2012-15), as a faculty senator (2015-18) and as the department’s associate chair for undergraduate education (2016-20). In the latter role, she restructured the undergraduate laboratory sequence, facilitated the inclusion of active learning in undergraduate courses, recruited new instructors and oversaw the transition to online learning during the pandemic.  Hoffman is also a Fellow of the Joint Space-Science Institute and has served in various leadership roles within her field, including as a member of the executive committee of the Division of Particles and Fields at the American Physical Society (2010-13).Kara Hoffman at the South Pole. Photo courtesy of same.

She has mentored more than a dozen postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. Hoffman earned her Ph.D. in high-energy physics in 1998 and her master’s degree in physics in 1994 from Purdue University and her bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kentucky in 1992. Before joining UMD, she was a Fellow at CERN and a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute. 

Hoffman succeeds Steve Rolston, who completed a 10-year term as physics chair. During Rolston’s tenure as chair, he hired 14 faculty members, founded the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance, sponsored the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, and sponsored four Conferences for Undergraduate Underrepresented Minorities in Physics—while also successfully navigating the department’s operations during the pandemic. During the past decade, six physics faculty members were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, four were named Distinguished University Professors and four were named Distinguished Scholar-Teachers. While chair, Rolston also maintained his own quantum research program, authoring 32 publications and graduating eight Ph.D. students.