Career advice for budding female quantum leaders

Career advice for budding female quantum leaders

This International Day of Women and Girls in Science, four remarkable female quantum experts share their career insights as they shape Australia's quantum future.

Dr Danielle Holmes 
Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW Sydney  

Dr Holmes is inspired by quantum engineering’s potential to unlock more powerful computers, more precise sensors and more secure communication networks. 

In her current work as a postdoctoral researcher at UNSW Sydney, she’s contributing to research into fabricating ‘qubits’ – the building blocks of a quantum computer. This fascinating field involves measuring the unique quantum properties of single atoms implanted into silicon chips at near absolute-zero temperature, paving the way for incredibly powerful quantum machines.  

Last year, she took to the road on a national tour as the Australian Institute of Physics’ Women in Physics Lecturer for 2025, sharing her passion with students across the country.   

Dr Holmes' tip for budding quantum engineers: 

“I would recommend that high school students continue to fuel their quantum curiosity by reading books outside of their school's curriculum, attending public lectures delivered by scientists and engineers, watching informative YouTube videos and getting their hands dirty with online courses." 

Read more about Dr Holmes’ advice: How to become a quantum engineer | UNSW Sydney 

Dr Christina Giarmatzi  
Researcher and Senior Lecturer in Quantum Physics, Macquarie University 

Dr Giarmatzi is a former recipient of a Sydney Quantum Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, completing research at the UTS Centre for Quantum Software and Information. With a background in physics from her home country of Greece, Dr Giarmatzi’s work is prompting a rethink on quantum foundations and theory. She collaborates with experimentalists and harnesses artificial intelligence to discover new ways to improve the performance of quantum computers.     

Late last year, Dr Giarmatzi led a team of researchers that unearthed a world-first breakthrough – identifying how memory errors unfold over time inside a quantum computer. This is a critical step towards building more reliable large-scale quantum platforms in future, making it possible for scientists to better understand noise patterns, including those that are uniquely quantum in nature from nearby qubits on the same chip. 

Dr Giarmatzi believes greater diversity in science will help bring about future scientific breakthroughs:  

“Diversity is needed because diversity of opinions, schools of thought and perspectives are needed to advance science. It is therefore our responsibility to make everyone feel welcome to our community.”  

Read more about Dr Giarmatzi’s latest research: Australian team maps quantum error memory over time 

Professor Irina Kabakova 
Professor in Optical Physics, University of Technology Sydney  

Professor Irina Kabakova works as an optical physicist, investigating how advances in imaging and quantum sensing techniques can be applied across bioengineering for better clinical and environmental outcomes.  

Professor Kabakova is driven by the goal of advancing the speed of new discoveries and bringing down the cost of these promising new imaging technologies, so that more people can benefit from them in diagnosing and treating diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and fibrosis. 

As a committed advocate for gender equality in STEM, Professor Kabakova has led the Academic Women in Science (AWiS) Network at UTS since 2021, delivering professional development opportunities and promoting inclusive leadership so that more women participate in physics and technical sciences.  

Professor Kabakova reflects on her science career: 

“Being a scientist means that you always have a curious mind. Routine jobs might not satisfy your need to answer questions and learn more. This thirst for knowledge is rewarded within science – there’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in a career in research, because you are able to propose and answer your own questions.” 

Learn more about Professor Kabakova’s work: Irina Kabakova | About | University of Technology Sydney 

Dr Xanthe Croot  
Director, Superconducting Quantum Circuits Laboratory, University of Sydney 

Dr Croot is an experimental physicist whose work sits at the cutting edge of quantum circuit technology, harnessing superconducting and hybrid superconducting circuits to help build a new class of intrinsically error-resistant quantum bit (qubits). With the aim of reducing errors and improving performance in modern quantum processors, the potential real-world applications of her findings are vast: from accelerated quantum computing to power machine learning and finance, to better cybersecurity through advanced cryptography.   

Dr Croot’s own journey into the exciting world of physics was sparked in the formative Year 12, when she attended the Professor Harry Messel International Science School at the University of Sydney in 2007. She reflects on this time bonding with like-minded peers and hearing from a broad array of scientists as being pivotal in shaping her career trajectory and the “eye-opening” possibilities across science.  

She’s now giving back to young women poised to enter quantum careers through the Physics Unboxed program, hosted by the Quantum Science Group and the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. This annual event has given hundreds of high school girls from Sydney and beyond a taste of STEM careers, with hands-on experiments, lab tours and the chance to chat to real-world physicists.  

“It’s important to broaden your perspectives on what a career in physics can entail...There are many exciting places that it can take you.”  

Find out more about Physics Unboxed: Physics Unboxed: Expanding career horizons for girls in STEM - Quantum at Sydney