KNAW Early Career Award for John van de Wetering
John van de Wetering, assistant professor in the TCS group, has received a KNAW Early Career Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations!!
John is recognised for his work on the ZX-calculus, a visual language for quantum computations. He helped turn it into a practical tool for making quantum programs smaller, checking that they are correct, and simulating quantum computations on ordinary computers.
During his PhD at Radboud University Nijmegen with Aleks Kissinger, the two of them built PyZX, an open-source quantum compiler. At the University of Oxford, John and Aleks then wrote the book Picturing Quantum Software. Since joining the University of Amsterdam in 2022, John has worked on classical simulation of quantum computations with ZX diagrams, supported by an NWO Veni grant since 2024. He is also programme director of the UvA Master’s in Quantum Computer Science, which started in September 2024.
The award will be presented at a ceremony on 1 December.
