Paul Nation
Principal Research Staff Member at IBM
Town of Yorktown, New York, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolPaul Nation is a Principal Research Staff Member at IBM with 15 years of experience advancing quantum computation and information, blending deep theoretical training (PhD in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics) with hands-on engineering. He leads cutting-edge quantum software and delivery efforts, contributing substantially to Qiskit—improving provider integrations, simulators (Aer), and user-facing visualizations for IBM Quantum devices. His work spans research leadership, program direction, and developer tooling, and includes impactful contributions to widely used open-source projects like SciPy and QuTiP notebooks. Based in Yorktown, NY, he combines academic rigor from Dartmouth with practical system-building at IBM and Northrop Grumman, and he has a track record of improving low-level algorithms and developer experience in production quantum stacks. An often-overlooked strength is his ability to move between technical writing, backend engineering, and product-facing features, making complex quantum capabilities accessible to users and teams.
15 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS), Physics, Bachelor of Science (BS), Physics at Utah State UniversityDoctor of Philosophy (PhD), Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at Dartmouth College
English
Stackoverflow
384reputation
35kreached
16answers
1question
Github Skills (48)
algorithm10
algorithms10
visualization10
c-language10
transcode10
restructuredtext10
python10
apidoc10
back-end-development10
simulator10
sphinx10
technical-writing10
testing10
sparse-matrix10
rs10
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
Qiskit/qiskit-tutorials
Sep 2018 - Jul 2021
A collection of Jupyter notebooks showing how to use the Qiskit SDK
Role in this project:
Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:5 releases, 54 reviews, 298 commits in 2 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Paul's commits focused on updating documentation related to Qiskit and its various application modules. They added images, refined descriptions of core concepts, and updated tutorials for accuracy and clarity. The user appears to have been primarily involved in improving the accessibility and instructional quality of the Qiskit documentation, aligning it with the latest features and the intended user experience.
quantum-computingsdknotebooksquantum-programming-languagejupyter
qutip/qutip-notebooks
Oct 2013 - Oct 2017
A collection of IPython notebooks using QuTiP: examples, tutorials, development test, etc.
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:16 commits, 9 PRs, 36 pushes in 4 years
Contributions summary:Paul contributed to the QuTiP-notebooks repository by adding examples to illustrate the use of QuTiP library features. This included adding an interpolation example and updating existing examples to the latest version of the library. Furthermore, the user incorporated a Bloch sphere example with a colorbar, expanding the visualization capabilities of the project. These changes suggest a focus on enhancing the user experience and showcasing the library's functionality.
pythonunittestingjupyter-notebookipython-notebooksnotebooks
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.