avatar

Alec Yen

PhD Candidate in EECS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
alecyen (at) mit.edu


About Me

I am a final-year PhD candidate in MIT’s EECS department, advised by Prof. Kevin O’Brien, where my research focuses on measurement architectures for superconducting qubits. My work combines circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED), numerical and electromagnetic modeling, and quantum engineering to address the performance and scalability limits of today’s quantum hardware. Key contributions include directional resonators for more uniform readout, interferometric Purcell filters that eliminate the need for added components, and a new “arm qubit” architecture that enables ultrafast, high-fidelity, and high-QND readout in tens of nanoseconds.

As I complete my PhD, I’m looking forward to applying this expertise to the practical challenges of building scalable, fault-tolerant quantum hardware.

Download Resume (PDF)

Technical Expertise

Education

Experience

Graduate Research Fellow | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA • Aug 2020 – Present
Hardware Design Intern | Garmin Ltd.
Olathe, KS • Summer 2019
Research Intern | Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN • Summer 2018

Invited Talks

  1. Fast and scalable measurement of superconducting qubits
    Invited Talk, IBM Quantum (T.J. Watson Research Center), Yorktown Heights, NY.
    June 2024

  2. Fast, low-photon-number readout using the arm qubit
    Upcoming Invited Talk, MIT Quantum Science and Engineering Consortium Annual Research Conference, Bretton Woods, NH.
    January 2026

Selected Publications

  1. Phys Rev Appl
    Directional emission of a readout resonator for qubit measurement
    Alec Yen, Yufeng Ye, Kaidong Peng, Jennifer Wang, Gregory Cunningham, Michael Gingras, Bethany M. Niedzielski, Hannah Stickler, Kyle Serniak, Mollie E. Schwartz, Kevin P. O'Brien
    Physical Review Applied, 2024. (★Editor's Suggestion)
    PDF

  2. Phys Rev Appl
    Interferometric Purcell suppression of spontaneous emission in a superconducting qubit
    Alec Yen, Yufeng Ye, Kaidong Peng, Jennifer Wang, Gregory Cunningham, Michael Gingras, Bethany M. Niedzielski, Hannah Stickler, Kyle Serniak, Mollie E. Schwartz, Kevin P. O'Brien
    Physical Review Applied, 2025.
    PDF

  3. arXiv
    The arm qubit: A superconducting qubit co-designed for coherence and coupling
    Jeremy B. Kline, Alec Yen, Stanley Chen, Kevin P. O'Brien
    arXiv, 2025 (Under Review).
    PDF

  4. Nat Commun
    Near-ultrastrong nonlinear light-matter coupling in superconducting circuits
    Yufeng Ye, Jeremy B. Kline, Alec Yen, Gregory Cunningham, Max Tan, Alicia Zang, Michael Gingras, Bethany M. Niedzielski, Hannah Stickler, Kyle Serniak, Mollie E. Schwartz, Kevin P. O'Brien
    Nature Communications, 2025.
    PDF

  5. Sci Adv
    Ultrafast superconducting qubit readout with the Quarton coupler
    Yufeng Ye, Jeremy B. Kline, Sean Chen, Alec Yen, Kevin P. O'Brien
    Science Advances, 2024.
    PDF

  6. IEEE MTT
    Reflection-less filter for superconducting quantum circuits
    Jessica Kedziora, Eric Q. Bui, Alec Yen, Andres E. Lombo, Kaidong Peng, Terence J. Weir, Kevin P. O'Brien
    IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2025.
    PDF

  7. IEEE TAS
    Variable frequency pulse generation from breathers in Josephson transmission lines
    Gregory Cunningham, Yufeng Ye, Kaidong Peng, Alec Yen, Jessica Kedziora, Kevin P. O'Brien
    IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 2025.
    PDF

  8. arXiv
    High-efficiency, low-loss Floquet-mode traveling wave parametric amplifier
    Jennifer Wang*, Kaidong Peng*, Jeffrey M. Knecht, Gregory D. Cunningham, Andres E. Lombo, Alec Yen, Daniela A. Zaidenberg, Michael Gingras, Bethany M. Niedzielski, Hannah Stickler, Katrina Sliwa, Kyle Serniak, Mollie E. Schwartz, William D. Oliver, Kevin P. O'Brien
    arXiv, 2025 (Under Review).
    PDF

Prior Publications (Undergraduate & Internships)
  1. AIAA ASCEND
    Integrable timing on silicon wafer supporting CubeSats-based communications, navigation and radio science
    Alec Yen, Mina Kim, Ruonan Han, Hamid H. Javadi, Lin Yi
    AIAA ASCEND 2022.

  2. IEEE IFCS
    Sub-terahertz heterodyne spectroscopy of carbonyl sulfide
    Lin Yi, Hamid Javadi, Wei Zhang, James Mckelvy, Mina Kim, Alec Yen, Ruonan Han
    Joint Conference of the European Frequency and Time Forum and IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium, 2021.

  3. IEEE MWSCAS
    A high slew rate, low power, compact operational amplifier based on the super-class AB recycling folded cascode
    Alec Yen, Benjamin J. Blalock
    IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 2020.

  4. IEEE ICECS
    A sub-threshold low-power integrated bandpass filter for highly-integrated spectrum analyzers
    Gavin B. Long, M. Nance Ericson, Charles L. Britton, Benjamin D. Roehrs, Ethan D. Farquhar, S. Shane Frank, Alec Yen, Benjamin J. Blalock
    IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 2020.

  5. SPIE EI
    Through the windshield driver recognition
    David Cornett, Alec Yen, Grace Nayola, Diane Montez, Christi R. Johnson, Seth T. Baird, Hector Santos-Villalobos, David S. Bolme
    SPIE Electronic Imaging, 2019.

  6. IEEE NAPS
    CXSparse-based differential algebraic equation framework for power system simulation
    Alec Yen, Hantao Cui, Kevin Tomsovic
    IEEE North American Power Symposium, 2018.

Leadership & Awards

NSF Graduate Research Fellow | National Science Foundation
2021 – Present
Best Poster Award | MIT Quantum Science and Engineering Consortium Annual Conference
2024
MIT Jacobs Presidential Fellow | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2020 – 2021
Team Captain & Hardware Lead | UTK IEEE Robotics Team
2018 – 2020
Undergraduate Researcher of the Year & Top Graduate | University of Tennessee
2020