Marcus Palmer da Silva

Principal Researcher at Microsoft

Redmond, Washington, United States

About

Experienced physicist and engineer with a long research track record in quantum computing and related topics.

Experience

  • Principal Researcher at Microsoft
    Aug 2019 - Present · 6 yrs 11 mos

  • Director of Device Theory and Applications Research at Rigetti Quantum Computing
    May 2017 - Aug 2019 · 2 yrs 4 mos

  • Scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies
    Mar 2011 - May 2017 · 6 yrs 3 mos

    Member of the Quantum Information Processing Group (formerly known as the Disruptive Information Processing Technologies Group) Principal investigator for 4 yr project involving academic and industrial partners.

  • Post-doctoral fellow at Université de Sherbrooke
    Aug 2008 - Mar 2011 · 2 yrs 8 mos

    Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) post-doctoral fellow (2008-2010) Theoretician in the Physics of Quantum Information group. Collaborated with groups in Canada and Switzerland, leading to publications in journals such as Nature, Nature Physics, and Physical Review Letters. Applied statistical methods, such as Markov Chain Monte-Carlo sampling, importance sampling, and bootstrapping in a quantum information processing setting in order to propose general experiment verification techniques with significant gain over previously known approaches. Developed techniques to subtract and reject noise from quantum signals in order to propose a method for observing quantum signatures in single microwave photon signals for the first time. Implemented numerical integration algorithms in C++ for stochastic differential equations in ~8000 dimensions.

  • Wireless Modem R&D at SOMA Networks
    May 2000 - Oct 2001 · 1 yr 6 mos

    Member of a small group responsible for the design of telecommunication protocols over 3G digital radio channels. Co-developed domain specific language for the efficient simulation of signal processing algorithms using C/C++, SWIG, and Ruby. Proposed improvements to error correction algorithms which reduced encoder complexity and increased robustness against noise. Collaborated closely with hardware and software development groups in order to verify functionality of production prototypes.