Outreach

YouTube Channel

We have a YouTube channel featuring videos from our events. The lectures of the Maryland Quantum-Thermodynamics Symposium 2023 are collected in a playlist.

You can also see the lectures of the 2024 Winter Graduate School on AMO Physics, Quantum Thermodynamics: quantum many-body meets thermodynamics in this YouTube playlist.

Popular-Science Articles

• Chaleur, travail, rendement: optimiser les machines quantiques, Pour la Science (Jan. 25, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern. Translated from English version published in Scientific American.

Public lectures

• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, World Quantum Day Celebration, Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center, U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA (Apr. 12, 2025). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Heat, power, action! From steam engines to quantum computers, thermodynamics drives technology transformation, CNMS Science Discovery Series, College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA (Nov. 7, 2024). By Sebastian Deffner.
• Bell’s inequality and the nature of physical reality, Meeting of the Physics Societies of Ireland (MOPSI), Dublin, Ireland (Apr. 13, 2024). By Steve Campbell.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Spark After Dark: STEAMpunk, TELUS Spark Science Centre, Calgary, Canada and online (Apr. 13, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Science on Tap, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA (Mar. 28, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, ASIS&T Webinar, ASIS&T (Association for Information Science and Technology), online (Jan. 18, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum essentials, Future Quantum, Sparks! Serendipity forum at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (Nov. 15, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, CERN Library, Geneva, Switzerland (Nov. 14, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Living with (quantum) uncertainty, Pint of Quantum, Pint of Science, Dublin, Ireland (Nov. 9, 2023). By Steve Campbell.
• Quantum steampunk, Quantum Thermodynamics Down Under, U. of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and online (Nov. 7–10, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, From Physics to Life, Life on the Edge, U. of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA (Oct. 11–12, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Symposium in honor of Ludwig Boltzmann’s 179th Birthday, Ludwig Boltzmann Forum, online (Feb. 20–21, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Institute for the Science of Origins, Case Western Reserve U., Cleveland, OH, USA (Nov. 1, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• What if the Victorians had discovered quantum computing?, Ask a Physicist, Beyond Center, Arizona State U., Tempe, AZ, USA and online (Oct. 24, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, PQI 2022, Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (PQI), Pittsburgh, PA, USA (Sep. 15, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Physics Today Webinar: Editor’s Series, online (Sep. 8, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Podcasts, radio shows, and videos

• Quantum Q&A, U. of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (Apr. 14, 2025). With Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum?, The Joy of Why, Quanta Magazine, (Sep. 12, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Twesh Upadhyaya on the Frontiers of Quantum Thermodynamics, The Quantum Record, online (Aug. 28, 2024). With Twesh Upadhyaya.
• Noncommuting conserved charges in quantum thermodynamics and beyond, NiklasOPF, online (Jul. 20, 2024). With Twesh Upadhyaya.
• The Quirks & Quarks Listener-Question Show (Dec. 30, 2023). With Shayan Majidy.
• Quantum steampunk, Qubites Valorem Reply (Dec. 21, 2022). With Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• UCD Rising Stars: Dr. Steve Campbell, UCD Discovery, University College Dublin (Dec. 19, 2023). With Steve Campbell.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern on quantum steampunk, Conversations at the Perimeter, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Dec. 1, 2022). With Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: Thermodynamics meets quantum information, It’s About Time!, Clubhouse (Nov. 19, 2022). With Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Interviews in mainstream media

• “Celebrate World Quantum Day with quantum steampunk”, by Linea Johnson, Smile Politely (Apr. 9, 2025).
• “A new take on the oldest physics: What actually happened right after the big bang?”, by Dina Genkina, Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation (Apr. 7, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The physicist on a mission to spark a quantum industrial revolution, by Thomas Lewton, New Scientist (Mar. 10, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• UMD Physicist Helps Sculpt Quantum Mechanics into Reality, UMD Department of Physics News (Mar. 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• In the quantum realm, time’s arrow might fly in two directions, by Gayoung Lee, Scientific American (Feb. 27, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• ‘Quantum Steampunk’ Creative Writing Course Explores the Science of Science Fiction, by John Tucker , Maryland Today (Feb. 14, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Your Consciousness Can Reach Back in Time to Shape the Past, a New Theory Suggests, by Stav Dimitropoulos, Popular Mechanics (Feb. 13, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• A physicist and steampunk enthusiast explores thermodynamics in the quantum world, by Ron Cowen, NIST Updates, NIST (Feb. 13, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum refrigerator keeps qubits cool, by Susan Curtis, Physics Magazine (Jan. 23, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum computers get automatic error correction for the first time, by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, New Scientist (Jan. 9, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Novel ‘quantum refrigerator’ is great at erasing quantum computer’s chalkboard, by Chad Boutin, NIST News (Jan. 9, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Record cold quantum refrigerator paves way for reliable quantum computers, by Lovisa Håkansson, Chalmers U. News (Jan. 9, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Jobs If You Like Math, by Stuart Kallen, Reference Point Press (Jan. 1, 2025). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know, by Zack Savitsky, Quanta Magazine (Dec. 13, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Carnot’s Theorem, FQxI’s “My Favourite” Ep 1, by FQXi (Nov. 28, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum theory is challenging long-standing ideas about entropy, by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, New Scientist (Oct. 15, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Why this physicist is bringing thermodynamics to the quantum age, by Emily Conover, Science News (Sep. 23, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Is it possible to send messages back in time?, by Rakefet Tavor, Epoch (Aug. 8, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum Q&A with Shayan Majidy, Institute for Quantum Computing, U. of Waterloo (Oct. 20, 2023). Interviewee: Shayan Majidy.
• Quantum time travel: The experiment to ‘send a particle into the past’, by Miriam Frankel, New Scientist (May 29, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas That Are Changing The World, by Roseann O’Reilly Runte, Simon & Schuster (May 7, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• If the multiverse theory is real, how soon can I ditch this sucky timeline?, by Carlyn Zwarenstein, Salon (Jan. 30, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Simulations of time travel send quantum metrology back to the future, by Unnati Akhouri, Physics World (Jan. 12, 2024). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Physicists find ultimate limit for how accurate clocks can be, by Alex Wilkins, New Scientist (Nov. 28, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Shaping the infrastructure that is woven into our everyday life: that’s what quantum computing will do, by Antonella Del Rosso, Sparks! and README.IT, an internal publication of CERN (Nov. 9, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Physicists Say Time Travel Can Be Simulated Using Quantum Entanglement, by Isaac Schultz, Gizmodo (Oct. 28, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Simulations of “backwards time travel” can improve scientific experiments, by Vanessa Bismuth, U. of Cambridge Research News (Oct. 12, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum mechanics and thermodynamics can both be true, say physicists, by Martijn Boerkamp, Physics World (Jul. 28, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The Most Surprising Discoveries in Physics, by Clara Moskowitz, Scientific American (Jul. 27, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• In New Paradox, Black Holes Appear to Evade Heat Death, by George Musser, Quanta Magazine (Jun. 6, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• What Tom Cruise’s Weirdest Sci-Fi Movie Gets Wrong About Time Travel, by Tara Yarlagadda, Inverse (Mar. 17, 2023). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• A Reboot of the Maxwell’s Demon Thought Experiment—in Real Life, by Sophia Chen, Wired (Oct. 14, 2022). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Maryland Quantum-Thermodynamics Hub Launches With $2M Grant, Maryland Today (Sep. 30, 2022) and University of Maryland Research Roundup (Oct. 7, 2022). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It, by Dan Garisto, Scientific American (Oct. 6, 2022). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• UMD graduate students reflect on end of Ford Foundation diversity fellowship, by Nene Narh-Mensah, Diamondback (Oct. 3, 2022). Interviewees: Anthony Munson and Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Diving into UMD’s Quantum Community, by Bailey Bedford, U. of Maryland Physics Website (Sep. 6, 2022). Interviewee: Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Presentations to student and interest groups

• Quantum steampunk: Quantum information meets thermodynamics, Oxford Quantum Information Society, Oxford U., Oxford, UK and online (Mar. 6, 2025). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Mentorship for the STAR Lab Program, SARSEF (Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation), Tucson, AZ, USA (Sep 2024—Jan 2025). By Kanu Sinha.
• Quantum steampunk: Quantum information meets thermodynamics, Society of Physics Students, U. of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA (Sep. 12, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Classical Non-Abelian Thermodynamics presented at the MathQuantum research fair (Aug. 11, 2024). By Jade LeSchack.
• Talk at Women in Science and Engineering Retreat, Tanque Verde High School, Tucson (Apr. 2, 2024). By Kanu Sinha.
• “Atom and Photons”, Tech Talk at Prism week, Optical science and engineering diversity event at University of Arizona (Mar. 25, 2024). By Kanu Sinha.
• Quantum steampunk: Quantum information meets thermodynamics, Workshop on Stochastic Thermodynamics, Women’s Network, online (Oct. 26, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Mentored summer projects in Talaria Summer Institute on quantum physics. By Kanu Sinha.
• Faculty lunch seminar, TREND REU (Training and Research in Nonlinear Dynamics Research Experience for Undergraduates) Program, Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA (June 27, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• High-school-class visit, Computational Biology course, Nueva School, San Matteo, CA, USA and online (May 8, 2023).
• Speaker and Panelist at the Tucson Festival of Books (third-largest book festival in the US). Participated in the panel discussion The Future of Tech and spoke at the session “The Future is Quantum!” (Mar. 4–6, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Presented “Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow” and participated in the panel discussion “Putting the ‘Real’ in Real Good Science Fiction” at Boskone (the oldest annual science-fiction convention in New England) organized by the New England Science-Fiction Organization (Feb. 17–19, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Cavendish Inspiring Women, Cavendish Laboratory, U. of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK and online (Nov. 10, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: The physics of yesterday’s tomorrow, Zen4Quantum, Santa Clara, CA, USA and online (Oct. 29, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk: Quantum information meets thermodynamics, Undergraduate Quantum Association, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA (Oct. 25, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum steampunk, Casual Conversations, Dartmouth Class of 1969, online (Sep. 20, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Blog Posts

• Lessons in frustration, Quantum Frontiers (Feb. 16, 2025). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Ten Lessons I Learned from John Preskill, Quantum Frontiers (Jan. 19, 2025). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Finding Ed Jaynes’s ghost, Quantum Frontiers (Dec. 22, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem!, Quantum Frontiers (Nov. 28, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Sculpting quantum steampunk, Quantum Frontiers (Oct. 27, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Announcing the quantum-steampunk creative writing course, Quantum Frontiers (Sep. 18, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Always appropriate, Quantum Frontiers (Aug. 11, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• My favorite rocket scientist, Quantum Frontiers (Jul. 7, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum Frontiers salutes an English teacher, Quantum Frontiers (June 9, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Watch out for geese! My summer in Waterloo, Quantum Frontiers (June 6, 2024). By Jade LeSchack.
• Film noir and quantum thermo, Quantum Frontiers (May 22, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Let gravity do its work, Quantum Frontiers (May 12, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question, Quantum Frontiers (Apr. 24, 2024). By Shayan Majidy.
• How I didn’t become a philosopher (but wound up presenting a named philosophy lecture anyway), Quantum Frontiers (Apr. 14, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• My experimental adventures in quantum thermodynamics, Quantum Frontiers (Mar. 24, 2024). By Aleksander Lasek.
• Noncommuting charges are much like Batman, Quantum Frontiers (Mar. 20, 2024). By Shayan Majidy.
• The quantum gold rush, Quantum Frontiers (Mar. 17, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The rain in Portugal, Quantum Frontiers (Feb. 18, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Discoveries at the Dibner, Quantum Frontiers (Feb. 6, 2024). By Twesh Upadhyaya.
• Colliding the familiar and the anti-familiar at CERN, Quantum Frontiers (Jan. 21, 2024). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4), Quantum Frontiers (Jan. 31, 2024). By Shayan Majidy.
• What geckos have to do with quantum computing, Quantum Frontiers (Dec. 27, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The power of awe, Quantum Frontiers (Nov. 19, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Astrobiology meets quantum computation?, Quantum Frontiers (Oct. 22, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• May I have this dance?, Quantum Frontiers (Sep. 26, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem?, Quantum Frontiers (Sep. 10, 2023). By Tom Rivlin.
• The Book of Mark, Chapter 2, Quantum Frontiers (Aug. 28, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• The Book of Mark, Quantum Frontiers (Jul. 9, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Let the great world spin, Quantum Frontiers (June 11, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Winners of the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest!, Quantum Frontiers (May 1, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Quantum computing vs. Grubhub, Quantum Frontiers (Apr. 3, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Cross-entropy (Apr. 2, 2023). By Anıl Zenginoğlu.
• Identical twins and quantum entanglement, Quantum Frontiers (Mar. 12, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Memories of things past, Quantum Frontiers (Mar. 5, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• A (quantum) complex legacy: Part deux, Quantum Frontiers (Feb. 19, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• A (quantum) complex legacy, Quantum Frontiers (Jan. 29, 2023). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Eight highlights from publishing a science book for the general public, Quantum Frontiers (Dec. 18, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• A peek inside Northrop Grumman’s subatomic endeavors, Quantum Frontiers (Nov. 21, 2022). By Jade LeSchack.
• The spirit of relativity, Quantum Frontiers (Nov. 14, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Announcing the quantum-steampunk short-story contest!, Quantum Frontiers (Oct. 9, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.
• Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school, Quantum Frontiers (Oct. 3, 2022). By Shayan Majidy.
• We’re founding a quantum-thermodynamics hub!, Quantum Frontiers (Sep. 21, 2022). By Nicole Yunger Halpern.

Awards

• Jade LeSchack was accepted into the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society (Mar 2025).
• Postdoc Aleksander Lasek has won a Marie Curie Fellowship.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern received a Femtum Leap Innovation Award from the Quantum Innovation Summit.
• Jade LeSchack was awarded a MathQuantum undergraduate fellowship in the summer of 2024.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern was awarded the 2024 Katharine R. Gebbie Young Investigator Award from the NIST chapter of Sigma Xi.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern was named one of the 10 early-career scientists to watch in 2024 by Science News (Sep 23, 2024).
• Nicole Yunger Halpern was awarded the 2024 Hermann Weyl Prize for her work in quantum thermodynamics.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern was awarded the 2023 Mary Somerville Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics.
• Nicole Yunger Halpern’s book, Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow was shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science (September 5, 2023).
• Nicole Yunger Halpern is US Nominee for ASPIRE Young Researcher Award (Jul. 14, 2023).
• PROSE Award in Popular Science and Mathematics for Nicole Yunger Halpern’s book Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow.
  • Books Authored by Yunger Halpern and Shneiderman Win Literary PROSE Awards (Feb. 22, 2023).
  • Nicole Yunger Halpern’s Book Receives AAP Prose Award (Mar. 6, 2023).
• The Quantum-Steampunk Photo Shoot at UMIACS with Nicole Yunger Halpern was included in The Year in Pictures at the University of Maryland.