FAU Receives $3 Million Award for Quantum Workforce Development

Insider Brief

• Florida Atlantic University (FAU) has received a $3 million U.S. Department of Labor award to develop quantum education and workforce training programmes focused on quantum sensing and communications.
• The five-year initiative will establish educational pathways from early-college to graduate studies, with hands-on training using Rydberg-atom radio-frequency sensing equipment and an optical atomic clock supplied in collaboration with Infleqtion.
• FAU expects the programme to reach more than 100 students and plans to use the new equipment to support research and training in quantum sensing and communications.

PRESS RELEASE — Florida Atlantic University‘s Center for Connected Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (CA-AI), within the College of Engineering and Computer Science, received a $3 million award from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Strengthening Institutions Program to develop a quantum-ready workforce in Florida through education and research training in quantum-enabled sensing and communications.

The project, “Building Florida’s Quantum-Ready Workforce: Quantum-Skilled Pathways in Integrated Sensing and Communications from Early College to Graduate Studies,” is led by George Sklivanitis, Ph.D., associate director of CA-AI, Charles E. Schmidt Associate Research Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and fellow of the Institute for Smarter Cities, Spaces, and Health; and Dimitris Pados, Ph.D., director of CA-AI, Charles E. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Engineering, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and fellow of the Institute for Smarter Cities, Spaces, and Health.