Team
The people behind the circuits
Physicists and engineers working side by side in the cleanroom, the cryogenic lab and on the whiteboard.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Shabir Barzanjeh
Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Shabir leads the Integrated Hybrid Quantum Circuits group at the University of Calgary. Working as both a theorist and an experimentalist, he develops electrical, mechanical, magnonic and photonic quantum circuits for computing, communication and sensing. Before moving to Canada, he worked on superconducting circuit QED at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at ISTA in Austria.
He proposed mechanical resonators as microwave–optical quantum converters and introduced microwave quantum illumination, the basis of quantum radar, which he later demonstrated experimentally. He is a 2026 recipient of the Killam NRC Paul Corkum Fellowship, coordinates quantum projects at Quantum Horizons Alberta and founded quantasense, a company developing quantum sensors and quantum-limited amplifiers.
Postdocs and research staff
Dr. Shirin Afzal
Postdoctoral Fellow
Shirin completed her PhD in 2021 in Prof. Vien Van’s nanophotonics lab at the University of Alberta, where she modelled, designed and tested photonic devices. Her thesis on Floquet topological photonic insulators based on microring resonators received the George Walker Award as the top PhD thesis in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She joined the group in 2021 and studies mechanical and photonic quantum circuits in theory and experiment.
Taras Hrushevskyi
Research Assistant
Taras received his MSc in Physics from the University of Alberta in 2017, where he built an apparatus for producing Bose–Einstein condensates, and stayed on as a research assistant working on ultracold quantum gases and atomic quantum memories. He joined the group in June 2021 and leads the experimental implementation of quantum optical coherence tomography.
PhD students
Danial Davoudi
PhD Student
Danial holds a BSc from Shahid Beheshti University and an MSc from the University of Stuttgart, where he studied the magnetic properties of Kondo insulators. He then worked as an R&D test engineer on force and torque sensors and as a research assistant in quantum optomechanics at Stuttgart. His PhD focuses on superconducting quantum circuits and kinetic-inductance parametric amplifiers.
Armin Tabesh
PhD Student
Armin received his BSc in physics from Shahid Beheshti University in 2019, with interests in numerical simulation, quantum computing and quantum optics. He joined the group in January 2021 and works on microwave–optical photon conversion, superconducting circuits and hybrid quantum systems.
Mayte Y. Li-Gomez
PhD Student
Mayte received her BSc in Physics and Applied Mathematics from UCLA in 2019 and then studied temporal correlations in entangled two-photon absorption at the Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, UNAM, in Mexico. She joined the group in 2021 as an MSc student and is now a PhD student working on quantum optical coherence tomography and other quantum imaging and sensing projects.
Abdul Mohamed
PhD Student
Abdul received his BSc with honours in physics from Brandon University in 2019, where he measured the rotation curve of the Milky Way from radio survey data. He joined the group in 2021 as an MSc student and transferred to the PhD program, where he studies quantum-limited amplification, vacuum squeezing, path entanglement and coupled hybrid systems on superconducting platforms. He aims to turn quantum sensing into practical technologies for industry.
AK
Amesh Kahloon
PhD Student
Works on integrated photonics and topological protection for robust quantum devices.
Kayla McArthur
PhD Student
Kayla joined the group as a summer intern in 2023, building a system to fabricate tapered optical fibres, and completed her BSc in Physics at the University of Calgary in 2024. Her MSc, completed in 2026, used entangled photons for quantum sensing and phase sensing of microwave signals. Her PhD explores quantum effects in integrated topological circuits.
MSc students
Brendan Mackay
MSc Student
Brendan completed his BSc in Physics with a minor in Mathematics at the University of Calgary, where his honours thesis developed an optical-fibre tapering and dimpling system for the lab. He began his MSc in May 2024 and works on superconducting systems. A member of the Canadian Ski Team, he was the 2023 halfpipe world champion and won Olympic bronze in men’s freeski halfpipe in 2026.
Harshkumar Motiyani
MSc Student
HBSc in Mathematical Physics from Lakehead University, where his thesis compared physics-based, empirical and machine-learning models of storm-time atmospheric density. Works on quantum sensing with photon pairs.
Cole Lester
MSc Student
Studied physics at the University of Calgary with a focus on computational physics and data analysis. Works on piezoelectric devices and hybrid quantum circuits.
Undergraduates
Jessica Williamson
Undergraduate Researcher
BSc student in Physics with a minor in English at the University of Calgary and a PURE undergraduate research award recipient. Works on entangled photon sources and quantum metrology.
Former members
- Spencer Mung, Undergraduate Researcher, 2024–2025
- Jonah Richards, Undergraduate Researcher, 2024–2025
- Mackenzie Bowal, Undergraduate Researcher, 2024–2025
- Mahdi Rizvandi, MSc Student, 2022–2024
- Majid Taghavi, Postdoc, 2023–2024
- Veronica Chmielarski, PHYS 598 Student, 2023–2024
- Alireza Tabesh, MSc Student, 2021–2023
- Tyler Zegray, MSc Student, 2021–2023
- Pablo Graciano, Visiting Postdoc, 2023
- Murat Karakoç, PhD Student, 2022–2023
- Manpreet Kaur, Intern, 2022–2023
- Trong Ngo, Postdoc, 2021–2023
- Erhan Saglamyurek, Research Associate, 2021–2022
- Julian Palandri, MSc Student, 2021–2022
- Sepideh Ahmadi, Visiting PhD Student, 2021
Our research is funded by
