Bringing Quantum to Machine Learning

Becoming a physicist was not Maria Schuld's life goal. As an undergrad, she started out studying political science, taking physics in parallel. Her plan was to work for a nonprofit organization in a capacity that had a very clear benefit to society. But then, she says, "life happened"--jobs fell through and other opportunities opened up--and she found herself with a career in quantum machine learning. Today Schuld, who works for the Canadian quantum computing company Xanadu from her home in South Africa, says that she has matured in what she thinks it means for a person to benefit society.