Team

Researchers building coherent photonic computing.

A multi-institution team spanning physics, photonics, optimization, machine learning, benchmarking, and applications.

This directory records participation in the Expedition over time. Each person remains listed under their original project role and affiliation; “Now” identifies a subsequently verified affiliation, not a new project partner. PI and staff affiliations were reviewed on October 2, 2026, alongside selected student updates. Source links distinguish confirmed information from unresolved or self-reported records. Student roles describe their participation at the time. Paper-specific collaborations are documented in the publication archive.

Lab directories: Mabuchi Lab, McMahon Lab and Marandi Lab.

Principal Investigators

Hideo Mabuchi

Applied Physics

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Surya Ganguli

Applied Physics

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Marty Fejer

Applied Physics

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Marco Pavone

Aeronautics and Astronautics

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Davide Venturelli

Quantum Computing Group

USRA Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Peter McMahon

Applied & Engineering Physics

Cornell University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Alireza Marandi

Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics

Caltech Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Yoshihisa Yamamoto

Physics & Information Laboratories

NTT Research, Inc. Retired as NTT Research PHI Lab director in 2026. Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar 2026 leadership update

Eleanor Rieffel

Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

NASA

Now: University of Queensland

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Profile Google Scholar

Staff and researchers — project participation

Rajveer Nehra

Marandi Lab

Caltech

Now: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar Lab alumni record

Midya Parto

Marandi Lab

Caltech

Now: University of Central Florida

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar Lab alumni record

Saman Jahani

Researcher

Caltech

Now: ASML

Current affiliation is self-reported; the move from Caltech is also documented by Caltech Optica. Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar Lab alumni record

Tatsuhiro Onodera

Researcher

NTT Research, Inc.

Now: University of Toronto

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

Logan Wright

Researcher

NTT Research, Inc.

Now: Yale University

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar Published affiliation update

Faye-Marie Vassel

Mabuchi Lab

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

Noah Flemens

Mabuchi Lab

Stanford University Affiliation confirmed · 2026-10-02

Email Google Scholar

Edward Schmerling

Pavone Lab

Stanford University

Now: NVIDIA

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

Navid Azizan

Pavone Lab

Stanford University

Now: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Carsten Langrock

Researcher

Stanford University

Now: Keysight Technologies

Self-reported professional profile; an employer directory confirmation was not located. Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Aaron Lott

Researcher

USRA

Now: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

David Bernal

Researcher

USRA

Now: Purdue University

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

Irina Patrikeeva Hallinan

Researcher

USRA

Now: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Google Scholar

Sergey Knysh

Researcher

USRA

Now: Founder at Symulat

Filip Maciejewski

Associate Scientist

USRA

Google Scholar

Jérémie Laydevant

Researcher

USRA

Research / affiliation

Antonio Sannia

Postdoctoral Researcher

USRA

Google Scholar

Students and interns — project participation

Abhishek Kumar Singh

Internship: Numerical Models for Optimization Hardware

Princeton University 2020-2022

Anthony Armenakas

Internship: Benchmarking Flight Anomaly Detection Models with Discrete Latent Spaces

Harvard University 2021-2022

Besart Mujeci

Internship: NSF Expedition Science Communication and Software Development

University of Southern California 2022

Jordan Tsao

Internship: NSF Expedition Software Development

Carnegie Mellon University 2022

Matthew Kowalsky

Benchmarking the Coherent Ising Machine

University of Southern California 2020

Nikesh Mishra

RIACS Quantum Software Engineering

Stanford University 2022

Robin Brown

Neural Network Verification via Mixed-Integer Quadratic Optimization

Stanford University 2021-2022

Dan Zhao

Graduate Student

Williams College / New York University 2022-2023

Jatadhari Mishra

Graduate Student

Stanford University

Marc Jankowski

Graduate Student

Stanford University

Pratik Sathe

Graduate Student

UCLA

Now: D-Wave

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Tamra Nebabu

Graduate Student

Stanford University

Now: Cornell University

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Arkadev Roy

Ph.D. Student (Marandi Lab)

California Institute of Technology

Lab alumni record

Gordon H. Y. Li

Ph.D. Student (Marandi Lab)

California Institute of Technology

Lab alumni record

James A. Williams

Ph.D. Student (Marandi Lab)

California Institute of Technology

Lab alumni record

Alen Senanian

Ph.D. Student (McMahon Lab)

Cornell University

Martin Stein

Ph.D. Student (McMahon Lab)

Cornell University

Now: Yale University

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02

Sridhar Prabhu

Ph.D. Student (McMahon Lab)

Cornell University

Ari Kapelyan

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University 2023

Hannah Doyle

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University

Marcel Mazur

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University

Muhun Kang

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University

Valene Tjong

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University

Zoey Hu

Undergraduate Student

Cornell University

Now: University of Colorado Boulder / JILA

Affiliation source · 2026-10-02