Short Bio

Dr. Johannes Otterbach is a Machine Learning and Algorithms Researcher at OpenAI working on fundamental question to build safe Artifical General Intelligence (AGI). He has a passion for big data technologies and applications to real world problems and is an established scientist with more than 15 publications in high impact journals and has won several awards. Before joining OpenAI he worked as a Quantum Engineer at Rigettti, as a Senior Data Scientist at LendUp and as a software engineer at Palantir Technologies. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany in topics related to Quantum Computing and held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Harvard Physics department where he broadened his interests in research and computational problems.

More details are in the (more or less up-to-date) resume

Talks

• Unsupervised Machine Learning on a Hybrid Quantum Computer (pdf, pptx), Bay Area Quantum Computing Meetup, YCombinator, February 2018
• Quantum Cloud Computing (pdf, pptx), TU Kaiserslautern, Germany, January 2018
• OQaml - A OCaml-based QASM, (pdf, pptx), Bay Area Quantum Computing Meetup, Rigetti, August 2017
• The Curse Of Dimensionality - Visualizing High-Dimensional Datasets using t-SNE, MemSQL, June 2016
• AI - En Route to Passing Turing's Test, TU Kaiserslautern, April 2016
• Data Science - WTH?, TU Kaiserslautern, April 2016

Publications

2018

• C. M. Wilson, J. S. Otterbach, N. Tezak, R. S. Smith, G. E. Crooks, M. P. da Silva
  Quantum Kitchen Sinks: An algorithm for machine learning on near-term quantum computers
  arxiv:1806.08321
• M. Reagor & Rigetti Computing
  Demonstration of Universal Parametric Entangling Gates on a Multi-Qubit Lattice
  Science Advances, 4, eaao3603 (2018)

2017

• J. Otterbach & Rigetti Computing
  Unsupervised Machine Learning on a Hybrid Quantum Computer
  arxiv:1712.05771

  Coverage:
  

  • MIT Technology Review: A Startup Uses Quantum Computing to Boost Machine Learning
  • Superposition.com: Rigetti Computing Advances Machine Learning on a Quantum Computer
  • EdgyLabs.com: Introducing: Quantum Machine Learning
  • quantamagazine.org: Job One for Quantum Computers: Boost Artificial Intelligence (reprint in Wired)
• Q. Wang, J. Otterbach, S. F. Yelin
  Interacting in-plane molecular dipoles in a zig-zag chain
  Phys. Rev. A 96, 043615
• S. Caldwell & Rigetti Computing
  Parametrically-Activated Entangling Gates Using Transmon Qubits
  arXiv:1706.06562

2014

• J. Otterbach and M. Lemeshko
  Dissipative Preparation of Spatial Order in Rydberg-Dressed Bose-Einstein Condensates
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 070401
• F. Bariani, J. Otterbach, H. Tan, P. Meystre
  Single-atom quantum control of macroscopic mechanical oscillators
  Phys. Rev. A 89, 011801(R) (2014)

2013

• J. Otterbach, M. Moos, D. Muth, M. Fleischhauer
  Wigner Crystallization of Single Photons in Cold Rydberg Ensembles
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 113001 (2013)
• E. G. Dalla Torre, J. Otterbach, E. Demler, V. Vuletic, M. D. Lukin
  Dissipative Preparation of Spin Squeezed Atomic Ensembles in a Steady State
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 120402 (2013)
• S. D. Bennett, N. Y. Yao, J. Otterbach, P. Zoller, P. Rabl, M. D. Lukin
  Phonon-induced spin-spin interactions in diamond nanostructures: application to spin squeezing
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 156402 (2013)

2012

• M. J. Edmonds, J. Otterbach, R. G. Unanyan, M. Fleischhauer, M. Titov, P. Öhberg
  From Anderson to anomalous localization in cold atomic gases with effective spin-orbit coupling
  New J. Phys. 14, 073056 (2012)

2011

• J. Ruseckas, V. Kudriasov, G. Juzeliunas, R. G. Unanyan, J. Otterbach, M. Fleischhauer
  Photonic band-gap properties for two-component slow light
  Phys. Rev. A 83, 063811 (2011)
• A. V. Gorshkov, J. Otterbach, M. Fleischhauer, T. Pohl, M. D. Lukin
  Photon-Photon Interactions via Rydberg Blockade
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 133602 (2011)
• D. Petrosyan, J. Otterbach, and M. Fleischhauer
  Electromagnetically induced transparency with Rydberg atoms
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 213601 (2011)

2010

• J. Otterbach, J. Ruseckas, R. G. Unanyan, G. Juzeliunas, and M. Fleischhauer
  Effective magnetic fields for stationary light
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 033903 (2010)

  Coverage:
  

  • PhysOrg.com: Artificial magnetic fields for light could illuminate correlated quantum systems
• A. V. Gorshkov, J. Otterbach, E. Demler, M. Fleischhauer, and M. D. Lukin
  Photonic Phase Gate via an Exchange of Fermionic Spin Waves in a Spin Chain
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 060502 (2010)
• R. G. Unanyan, J. Otterbach, M. Fleischhauer, J. Ruseckas, V. Kudriasov, and G. Juzeliunas
  Spinor Slow-Light and Dirac particles with variable mass
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 173603 (2010)

2009

• J. Otterbach, R. G. Unanyan, M. Fleischhauer
  Confining stationary light: Dirac dynamics and Klein tunneling
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 063602 (2009)
• R. G. Unanyan, J. Otterbach, M. Fleischhauer
  Confinement Limit of Dirac particles in scalar 1D potentials
  Phys. Rev. A 79, 044101 (2009)

2008

• F. E. Zimmer, J. Otterbach, R. G. Unanyan, B. W. Shore, M. Fleischhauer
  Dark-State Polaritons for multi-component and stationary light fields
  Phys. Rev. A 77, 063823 (2008)
• M. Fleischhauer, J. Otterbach, R. G. Unanyan
  Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary-light polaritons
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 163601 (2008)