ECE Welcomes Dr. Saikat Guha

Professor Saikat Guha has joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, College of Optical Sciences, as Clark Distinguished Chair Professor of ECE. As ECE expands its program in quantum engineering, Dr. Guha brings increased expertise in the growing field of quantum information research, but with a core ECE bent.

Guha is the PI and Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) Center for Quantum Networks (CQN). As part of his transition to the department, UMD will become a core member of CQN. The mission of this center is to support full-stack technology development, spanning a highly interdisciplinary theory and experimental research portfolio across many university and industry partners, to build towards a socially-responsible Quantum Internet that will encourage new technology industries featuring quantum service providers and application developers. Guha kicked off a major new DARPA project at UMD called Quantum Augmented Networks (QuANET), working with RTX, UCLA and UT Austin, aimed at using quantum optics in the physical layer to enhance network security. UMD will be the team’s technology integration hub. In addition, he leads numerous federally and industry funded sponsored projects focused on the fundamental quantum limits of various photonic information processing systems, with applications to quantum-enhanced communications, security, privacy, sensing and imaging.

After receiving a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2002, he earned a MS (2004) and PhD (2008) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Prior to joining the University of Arizona in 2017, he was with BBN Technologies in Cambridge, MA from 2008-2017, where he was part of the founding team of BBN’s Quantum Information Processing Group.

As a highly recognized quantum scientist, Guha has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Raytheon 2011 Excellence in Engineering and Technology Award, the 2023 Anita Jones Entrepreneurial Award from BBN Technologies, and the Raymie Stata Award for outstanding performance as a Teaching Assistant for Signals and Systems at MIT. He was a member of India’s first team to the International Physics Olympiad in Reykjavik in 1998, where he received an Honorable Mention and the European Physical Society (EPS) Award for the experimental component. He is a senior member of IEEE.

Published July 25, 2024