Nikita Astrakhantsev
Senior Quantum Research Scientist at Google
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolNikita Astrakhantsev is a Senior Quantum Research Scientist at Google in Santa Barbara with nine years of experience building and benchmarking beyond-classical applications for quantum hardware. He holds a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Zurich and combines deep theoretical training with hands-on ML and software engineering from MIPT and Yandex School of Data Analysis. Nikita contributes to prominent open-source projects—improving machine-learning primitives in netket for many-body quantum simulations and adding propagators and tests to poliastro—showing fluency across scientific codebases and production tooling. His background spans academia and industry, including internships at the Simons Foundation and earlier roles at Bosch and Google, giving him a rare mix of research rigor and pragmatic engineering. Colleagues rely on him to translate cutting-edge quantum algorithms into robust, testable implementations that drive hardware-relevant benchmarks.
9 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Quantum Physics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Quantum Physics at University of ZurichMaster's degree, Engineering Physics/Applied Physics, Master's degree, Engineering Physics/Applied Physics at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) (MIPT)Master's degree, Algorithms and Data Analysis, Master's degree, Algorithms and Data Analysis at Yandex School of Data Analysis
German, English, Russian
Github Skills (18)
quantum-mechanics10
pytorch10
artificial-neural-networks10
python10
machine-learning10
orbital-mechanics10
deeplearning-ai10
deep-learning10
neural-network10
astrodynamics10
simulator9
simulation9
numpy9
simulations9
physics9
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
poliastro/poliastro
Feb 2018 - Aug 2018
poliastro - :rocket: Astrodynamics in Python
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:115 commits, 20 PRs, 53 comments in 5 months
Contributions summary:Nikita made significant contributions to the project by implementing a new "mean_motion" propagator. They modified existing code to sample from eccentric anomaly and fixed dimension-related problems. The user also added multiple tests.
celestial-mechanicspythonsciencescientific-computingastrodynamics
netket/netket
Feb 2020 - Dec 2021
Machine learning algorithms for many-body quantum systems
Role in this project:ML Engineer
ML EngineerContributions:2 reviews, 24 commits, 1 PR in 1 year 10 months
Contributions summary:Nikita primarily contributed to the `netket` project by enhancing its machine learning capabilities, specifically within the context of many-body quantum systems. They implemented and refined the `der_log` function for the PyTorch machine, which is critical for calculating gradients in variational Monte Carlo methods. Additionally, the user addressed testing issues related to the PyTorch integration, improving the robustness of the framework. Their work involved modifying code in `netket/machine/torch.py` and `Test/Machine/test_machine.py` to improve the integration of neural networks within the quantum physics simulation framework.
markov-chain-monte-carlovariational-monte-carlomonte-carlo-methodsquantum-computingvariational-method
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