Quantum Optics · Foundations · IQC Waterloo
Testing what quantum mechanics actually predicts.
Fourth-year PhD physicist at the Institute for Quantum Computing. I design and operate free-space photonic interferometers with entangled photon pairs, build rigorous statistical pipelines to analyse quantum experiment data, and prove theorems about the structure of quantum state spaces.
Research & Projects
A data-driven test of Born’s rule: does a 4-slit entangled-photon interference dataset require the full n²−1 = 15 dimensional state space quantum mechanics predicts? Built a cross-validated bilinear ALS fitting pipeline processing 1296-file experimental datasets, distributed across Compute Canada via SLURM. No assumed model — the rank of the data determines the answer.
First direct experimental test of tomographic locality — a foundational axiom in every reconstruction of quantum mechanics. Analysed two-photon polarization data using bootstrap GPT tomography on a pair of qubits, demonstrating no evidence for a failure of tomographic locality, and confirming that real-amplitude quantum theory violates the principle as predicted.
Designed and built a precision 4-rail free-space photonic interferometer to measure the Sorkin parameter I⊂3⊂ — a direct test of higher-order interference in quantum mechanics. Operating with an emICCD camera, phase controllers, and 1024×1024-pixel detection across 16 shutter configurations × 81 phase combinations per dataset.
Proved a classification theorem for Generalised Probabilistic Theories: a complete characterisation of how operational theories can assign probabilities to measurement outcomes. The GPT framework is technology-stack agnostic — it applies equally to discrete-variable, continuous-variable, and bosonic systems.
Skills
Background
Personal
The same obsessive attention to signal-to-noise that runs experiments also runs training blocks.
Because apparently an Ironman wasn’t a strong enough signal that I enjoy suffering. Training data →
Contact
Looking for roles at photonic quantum computing companies, satellite QKD and quantum networking teams, bosonic hardware startups, and quantum software teams. If you’re building the quantum stack, reach out.
tlismer@uwaterloo.ca GitHub → Download CV →“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”— Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind