Education

Professional

Research

Publications

Throughout the last year, I have been working on Quantum Machine Learning. Here are the publications and preprints I have been involved in:

  1. Herbst, S., Cranganore, S.S., De Maio, V., Brandić, I. (2024). "Exploring Channel Distinguishability in Local Neighborhoods of the Model Space in Quantum Neural Networks". arXiv:2410.09470 [quant-ph]
    The preprint of our work is available on Arxiv. We propose an ansatz-centric perspective on QNNs. In particular, from the literature, we gather results that heuristically show that having an ansatz form an (approximate) 2-design is not a sufficient criterion for expressivity. Further, we study distinguishability of quantum channels upon perturbing parameters (i.e., similar to a parameter update during training), suggesting many parameters are required to be able to distinguish the QNN from itself upon parameter update, contrasting with the initial framework. The behavior we find on an architectural level has remarkable resemblance to the Barren Plateau phenomenon, suggesting that the architectures themselves are fundamentally flawed.
  2. Herbst, S., De Maio, V., Brandić, I. (2024). "On Optimizing Hyperparameters for Quantum Neural Networks". In: IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE24), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, September 15-20, 2024. (to appear).
    The preprint of our work is available on Arxiv. We benchmarked a variety of different hyperparameters on four problems. We included parameter initialization strategies for mitigating trainability issues, such as Barren Plateaus. Furthremore, given the noise inherent in NISQ technology, we included noise in the simulators to compare with the noiseless simulations.
  3. Herbst, S., De Maio, V., Brandic, I. (2024). "Streaming IoT Data and the Quantum Edge: A Classic/Quantum Machine Learning Use Case". In: Zeinalipour, D., et al. Euro-Par 2023: Parallel Processing Workshops. Euro-Par 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14351. Springer, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-50684-0_14. Limassol, Cyprus
    We wrote a paper for the QuickPar workshop at Euro-Par 2023 on our idea of the Quantum Edge, which is available here. The paper made it into Quantum Zeitgeist, where it was summarized. The article can be found here.
  4. Herbst, S. (2023). "Beyond 0's and 1's: Exploring the Impact of Noise, Data Encoding and Hyperparameter Optimization in Quantum Machine Learning (Diploma Thesis, Wien). DOI: 10.34726/hss.2023.111504.
    Here is the link to my master's thesis. We benchmarked diffferent hyperparameter configurations for Quantum Machine Learning models and compared them to classical Machine Learning models, with the goal of providing researchers and practitioners good starting points and a reduced search space for hyperparameter optimization.

Presentations

Furthemore, I have had the opportunity to present our work at the QuickPar workshop at Euro-Par 2023 and gave some invited talks in different research groups. Below is a presentations of talks I held.

  1. On Optimizing Hyperparameters for Quantum Neural Networks. IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE). 2024. Montreal, Canada.
  2. AI for Communication in Hybrid Classic Quantum Systems. CAIML Symposium. 2024. Vienna, Austria.
  3. On Hyperparameter Optimization in Quantum Neural Networks. Quantum Optics and Spectroscopy. Institute for Experimental Physics. Universität Innsbruck. 2024. Innsbruck, Austria.
  4. Beyond 0’s and 1’s ‑ Exploring the Complexities of Noise, Data Encoding, and Hyperparameter Optimization in Quantum Machine Learning (remote). National Physical Laboratory (NPL). 2023. London, UK.
  5. Beyond 0’s and 1’s ‑ Exploring the Complexities of Noise, Data Encoding, and Hyperparameter Optimization in Quantum Machine Learning. Walther Group. Faculty of Physics. University of Vienna. 2023. Vienna, Austria.
  6. Streaming IoT Data and the Quantum Edge: A Classic/Quantum Machine Learning Use Case. QuickPar Workshop at EuroPar 2023. Limassol, Cyprus.

Reviews

I have reviewed for conferences such as HPDC, QCE and QTML.

Scholarships, Fellowships, Awards & Honors

The list below includes scholarships, fellowships, awards and other honors I have received.

  1. Session Chair: I was asked to be session chair at the Machine Learning and Quantum Physics workshop I attended in April 2024 in Obergurgl, Austria. Information on the workshop can be found here.
  2. Scholarship: I was awarded the Siemens Award of Excellence at the 1st TU Wien informatics award ceremony for my academic achievements during my master's degree. Here is an article form TU Wien about the award ceremony.
  3. Scholarship: I was awarded the Conference Scholarship for early-career master's students of the Faculty of Informatics of TU Wien, after publishing my first paper, to travel to Euro-Par 2023 in Limassol, Cyprus.
  4. Fellowship: I received the ETH Zürich Student Summer Research Fellowship, where I was selected for a 20-person program out of 2,500 applicants for a 2-month research visit in Zurich, Switzerland in 2023. Here is an article of ETH Zürich, describing the program.
  5. Participant: My application to participate in the OpenAI Climate Change Hackathon 2022 was accepted.
  6. Scholarship: I was awarded the Huawei Seeds for the Future scholarship for my academic achievements during my bachelor's degree. Here is an article of TU Wien describing the scholarship and event.
  7. Scholarship: Based on my academic achievements, I was a two-times recipient of the merit-based scholarship at TU Wien in 2019 and 2021.
  8. National Champion: Before I started my academic career, I won the Austrian National Championship in Badminton in 2017 and 2018. I won several youth championships and attended two European Youth Championships.

Miscellaneous

Project Work

Throughout my studies and in my spare time I have worked on several projects.

For the sake of keeping this page readable, I outsourced my project page to here.

Personal

  1. I started doing Jujitsu in 2023 and am an orange-belt for now.
  2. I deeply care about climate change and think a lot about how to use technology to find solutions. This has resulted in my participation in the OpenAI Climate Change Hackathon in 2021 and the Capgemini Sustainability Data Science Challenge in 2021.
  3. I used to play Badminton professionally and eventually won the Austrian National Championships in Women's Doubles at 16. I found this old video of me at the last European Championships I played in here, if you're interested.
  4. I read a lot in my free time. I put a list of my favourite books here. Feel free to check it out!
  5. I have a deep love for music, played the Guitar for a long time and even had singing lessons at some point.