EQUATE team member gains funding to grow minority opportunities in quantum sensing
Abdelghani Laraoui, a research group leader with Nebraska EPSCoR’s EQUATE collaboration on quantum materials science, is collaborating with Jackson State University (JSU) faculty on a new U.S. National Science Foundation award through NSF’s ExpandQISE program. QISE is an acronym for Quantum Information Science and Engineering.
The newly funded project, Collaboration on Quantum Sensing Research and Education for Minority Participants, includes a three-year award of $800,000 to help train dozens of African-American youth while developing America’s expertise in quantum sensing.
The project, launching in October 2024, plans to mentor 80 graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 minority participants from JSU and nearby community colleges and K-12 schools during its three-year term. The goal is to provide comprehensive training in quantum biosensing through QISE coursework and the use of diamond quantum microscopy—a specialty of Laraoui, an assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).