Name: Matthew Otten
Title, including department and school you work in: Assistant Professor, Physics, College of Letters & Science
Hometown: Granite City, Illinois
Educational/professional background: B.S. in Physics, Illinois Institute of Technology; Ph.D. in Physics, Cornell University; Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellowship, Argonne National Laboratory; Scientist, HRL Laboratories
What is your field of research, and how did you get into it? Very generally, my goal is to make utility scale quantum computing a reality. In graduate school, I studied quantum mechanics and high-performance computing and found problems which I couldn’t solve with even the largest classical computers. At the time, the first small, prototype quantum computers were being built. I saw the opportunity for those previously unsolvable problems to someday be solved with future quantum computers and decided to work on making quantum computers better.
What attracted you to UW-Madison? The strength of the science that’s happening in the physics and broader Wisconsin community is very attractive. When I visited, everyone was very nice, it’s a very collegial department.
What was your first visit to campus like? My first visit to campus was on a gorgeous summer day, simply as a visitor. We walked around the historic buildings and along the lake.
What’s the most important lesson you wish to convey to students? The ability to think critically and approach problems in a systematic way. This is a key technique for solving physics problems but can be applied outside of physics and the sciences.
Does your work relate in any way to the Wisconsin Idea? If so, please describe how. The new ideas developed in my research will potentially create new technology which will help solve some of the biggest problems which affect those in Wisconsin and beyond.
What’s something interesting about your area of expertise you can share that will make us sound smarter at parties? The computational power of quantum computers grows exponentially; each additional qubit doubles the quantum computer’s strength.
Hobbies/other interests: I have a Siberian Husky puppy and we’ll be very happy to go to Madison and do a lot of skijoring, which is cross country skiing, but the dog pulls you. I am currently training for my first marathon. I play a lot of board games and have a very large board game collection. And my daughter just turned one. She’s become a new hobby.