2026 Quantum Cyber Resilience Workshop

Carlos Agustín Aguirre is the Senior Director of Strategic Proposal Development within Strategic Research Initiatives at the University of Texas at San Antonio. With more than 20 years of experience securing extramural funding, he helps guide institutional efforts to expand research portfolios and strengthen external partnerships.

His expertise centers on developing competitive, large‑scale grant proposals for federal and private sponsors and aligning university priorities with high‑impact funding opportunities. He holds two graduate degrees from Texas A&M University: a Master of Urban Planning (MUP) and a Master of Science in Geography.

Previously, at University of Texas System she was Associate Vice Chancellor for Federal Relations for National Security. From 2019-2021, she was on appointment as the Federal Partners Group Chief within the National Counterintelligence and Security Center at ODNI leadinga multi-agency team responsible for federal partner engagements focused on more than 140 Federal departments and agencies outside the intelligence community and DOD.

Michelle spent 10 years with Lockheed Martin leading strategic partnership development for Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories and Washington Operations. Michelle served 27 years in the U.S. Air Force with senior military command and senior staff positions including: Chief, Science and Technology (S&T) Division, USJFCOM Experimentation; Chief Scientist for Air Force Experimentation Office and Science. As part of her Pentagon duties and doctorate work, Michelle was the Air Force lead within Personnel for the oversight of the Air Force Graduate Education Management System reorganization and restructuring during the Year of Education and Training.

Michelle holds a bachelor's degree in economics from UCLA; a master's degree from Catholic University in International Affairs with a focus in senior Wargaming; and a doctorate in Higher Education with a focus on strategic development and organizational design from George Washington University. She serves as a member of the National Advisor Committee for the Federal Laboratory Consortium and on the National Defense Industry Association Science, Technology and Engineering Committee.

Giovanni Capriglione serves as President of the Texas Blockchain Council, a nonprofit trade association working to make the State of Texas the jurisdiction of choice for blockchain, digital assets and advanced computing.

Elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2012, Giovanni is serving his seventh term representing District 98 (Northwest Tarrant County). As a leader in technology policy, he has authored landmark legislation including the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and pioneering laws on cybersecurity, data privacy, artificial intelligence, and quantum technology. He created the Texas Cyber Command and has chaired numerous technology-focused committees.

Giovanni has been recognized as one of GovTech's 2025 Top 50 Public Sector AI Innovators and received the 2024 Bob Bullock Award for Outstanding Public Stewardship, among other honors.

Giovanni began his career in semiconductor design and applications in Silicon Valley before joining a DFW-based venture capital and private equity firm. Giovanni holds a BS in Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA in Finance from Santa Clara University. He has been married to his wife, Elisa, for 25 years and has three children.

Jose' Morales Escalante currently works as Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio Departments of Mathematics and Physics & Astronomy.

He did his Bachelor in Physics at UNAM, the National University of Mexico, with a thesis on the Theory and Experiments of Solitons in Water, under the advising of Professors María del Carmen Jorge & Panos Panayotaros at IIMAS-UNAM. He did a PhD in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences of The University of Texas at Austin, working on the Math & Computational Modeling of Electron Transport in Semiconductors by means of Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Boltzmann – Poisson, under the advising of Professor Irene Gamba.

He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the TU Vienna Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing on deterministic and stochastic numerical methods for Boltzmann – Poisson models of collisional electron transport, under the advising of Associate Professor Clemens Heitzinger. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at McMaster University, on the mathematical and computational modelling of nonequilibrium electrochemical and thermodynamic processes occurring in Li-ion batteries, under the advising of Professor Bartosz Protas, in a joint project with the McMaster Department of Chemistry and General Motors Canada.

Dr. Matthew Gibson-Lopez is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has researched algorithms and computational complexity for computational geometry problems, and recently has pivoted his research into quantum computing, namely noise-aware hybrid quantum-classical algorithm design for problems such as circuit synthesis, transpiling, and combinatorial optimization.

He is the Graduate Advisor of Record for the UT San Antonio Quantum Information Science and Engineering graduate certificate program, and he teaches courses on quantum computing and quantum machine learning.

Joe Glick is a Quantum Application Scientist at Qblox with a PhD in physics. He works with clients on the pre-sales side, configuring systems, building labs, qubit demos, and developing scalable solutions for customers. He has spent much of his career developing novel control electronics, building fridges, calibrating qubits, and working on hardware characterization and testing in the lab. His experience and past interests include cryogenic CMOS, superconducting electronics (SFQ), spintronics, and quantum many-body physics.

Prior to being with Qblox, Joe worked at IBM Quantum for almost seven years, pairing cryogenic electronics with superconducting qubits that can be deployed at scale, primarily to support quantum error correction. During his PhD at Michigan State University, Joe did research on Josephson-junction based cryogenic memories. He spent the better part of six years working in a cleanroom and performing cryogenic transport and magnetic measurements on superconducting quantum interest devices (SQUIDs). During his B.S. and Masters degree at Colorado School of Mines, Joe worked with high performance computers to perform quantum Hamiltonian simulations on ultra-cold atoms with Bose Einstein condensates (BEC) in optical lattice traps.

Prof. Hazzard theoretically studies the behavior of ultracold atomic systems. He is interested in "emergent" properties of many-body systems, and spends most of his time thinking about highly controlled quantum platforms, especially ultracold matter.

The vision is that fundamental advances in controlling, measuring, and understanding these many-body quantum systems will impact our knowledge of other fields through "quantum simulation", broadly construed, and enable applications in quantum metrology, precision measurement, and quantum computation.

Michael Kolodrubetz is an Associate Professor of Physics and the Director of the Center for Quantum Integrated Systems at the University of Texas at Dallas. He completed his undergraduate studies in Physics at Caltech in 2007 and went on to earn his PhD in Physics from Princeton University in 2012. Following his doctoral studies, Dr. Kolodrubetz pursued postdoctoral research at Boston University and the University of California at Berkeley before joining UT Dallas in 2018.

Dr. Kolodrubetz's research interests lie in the realm of theoretical quantum dynamics and topology. He has a particular focus on non-equilibrium quantum systems, including periodically-driven (Floquet) systems, which use strong drive to engineer physics often inaccessible in equilibrium. His work has achieved recognition including a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Kolodrubetz is also the leader of the quantum information science certificate at UTD.

William Kretschmer is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at UT Austin. His research lies broadly in the theory of quantum information and computation, with connections to complexity theory, cryptography, and learning. His work has been recognized with several awards, including Best Paper at CCC 2022, Best Student Paper at ITCS 2023, and an NDSEG fellowship. He earned his Ph.D. from UT Austin under the supervision of Scott Aaronson. Before returning to UT Austin, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

Dr. Jingbo Liu earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics from Wesleyan University in 2016 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Texas A&M University–San Antonio. Her research lies in algebraic number theory, especially the representation theory of quadratic and Hermitian lattices over number fields and their applications to post-quantum lattice-based cryptography.

Dr. Liu is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of mathematicians. Her mentees have presented their research at MAA MathFest and the AMS–PME Undergraduate Research Sessions at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. In Summer 2023, she served as the sole Director and Principal Investigator of the NSF–MAA-sponsored National Research Experience for Undergraduates program at Texas A&M University–San Antonio.

Dr. Monique Long-White is the Institutional Proposal Manager at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where she leads institution-level proposal development and facilitates interdisciplinary teams pursuing large-scale federal research funding. With more than 15 years of experience spanning academia, federal grant development, innovation ecosystems, and scientific research, she has led collaborations that translate tech

Bijo Mathew is an innovation-to-commercialization leader and advanced science and technology (S&T) ecosystem strategist with deep expertise in translating scientific and technological discoveries into market-ready solutions. With more than two decades of experience spanning academia, industry, the U.S. military, federal and state innovation programs, he has led and supported national innovation initiatives at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Mr. Mathew holds advanced degrees in Chemical, Biological, and Materials Science Engineering, as well as an MBA with a concentration in Management of Information Systems (MIS). He is recognized for his ability to identify and develop viable market pathways for emerging technologies, de-risk early-stage innovations, and design collaborative programs that accelerate commercialization across the S&T innovation landscape.

Dr. Rick Mukherjee's research focuses on the theoretical aspects of atomic, molecular, and optical physics, with a specific emphasis on quantum information and many-body physics using Rydberg atoms.

Dr. Prevost earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UTSA in 2013. Before transitioning to academia, he accumulated nearly two decades of industry experience, holding positions such as Director of Product Development, Director of Information Systems, and Chief Technical Officer in various San Antonio-based technology firms.

In 2015, Dr. Prevost co-founded UTSA's Open Cloud Institute (OCI), where he initially served as Assistant Director and Chief Research Officer. In 2021, he was appointed Executive Director of the OCI, leading efforts to advance cloud and edge computing through seminars, workshops, internships, and collaborative research.

Dr. Prevost's research interests encompass advanced control mechanisms for cloud computing, quantum cloud computing, distributed computing architecture, and power management techniques in cloud systems. He has been cited over 1,000 times in scholarly publications, reflecting his significant contributions to fields such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and quantum informatics.

Dr. Pablo Rivas is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Marist University whose research spans quantum machine learning and cybersecurity. His work focuses on practical, trustworthy, and resilient intelligent systems, including quantum machine learning under noisy conditions and applied AI methods for secure computing environments. His broader interests include cyber resilience, emerging computing systems, and translational pathways that connect advanced research to applied and industry-facing use cases. He previously directed the Center for Responsible AI and Governance at Baylor University, served at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and is a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM.

Jonathan Tijerina serves as the Vice President of Corporate Development at CPS Energy, the nation's largest municipally owned electric and natural gas utility. A seasoned energy‑industry professional with more than a decade of experience, Jonathan oversees Business & Economic Development, Products & Services, Sustainability, Grants, Research, and Innovation.

Throughout his career, Jonathan has contributed to several critical areas of the utility, including Government Relations, Corporate Communications, and the Office of the President—where he has served twice, including as Chief of Staff to the CEO. His work demonstrates a strong commitment to operational excellence and community partnership.

Jonathan's leadership has been recognized by the San Antonio Business Journal's 40 Under 40 and Latino Leaders Magazine's Most Influential Latinos in Energy. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Metro SA Chamber and the Alumni Association Board at UTSA. He holds degrees from UTSA and an MBA from Dallas Baptist University.

Prof. Michael Vasilyev received the M.S. degree in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, in 1999. His doctoral work was on quantum properties of novel optical amplifiers and optical fiber solitons.

In 1999 Dr. Vasilyev joined Corning Inc. (Somerset, NJ) as a senior research scientist, where he performed experimental and theoretical studies of noise and nonlinearities in optical fibers and amplifiers to optimize them for ultra-long-haul transmission systems.

Since 2003 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), TX, where he is currently a Full Professor. Prof. Vasilyev's research interests include quantum and classical communications, quantum information processing, novel optical amplifiers, nonlinear-optical signal processing, and nanophotonics.

Timothy James "TJ" White, Chief, Texas Cyber Command, of Boerne Texas, is a retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral and founder of OneNetworkConnection, LLC. He is a Professor-of-Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School, affiliated with the Military Cyber Professionals Association and the Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society, and a trustee of the Southwest Research Institute.

Joining the Navy in 1983 from Spring, Texas, he was honorably discharged in 2020 after 37 years of service. During his time in the Navy, he served as Commander of the United States Fleet Cyber Command/United States TENTH Fleet/United States Navy Space Command, and previously as the Commander of the United States Cyber National Mission Force/USCYBERCOM.

White received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy, a Master of Science in Systems Technology from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Master of Science in Strategic Resource Management from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

David Wiese is a seasoned technology executive with more than 30 years of industry experience, currently serving as Senior Director of SLED (State, Local, and Education) and Business Development at IonQ, the leading quantum technology company. Based in Austin, Texas, he is a graduate of Texas State University and has built his career at major technology companies, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and UDT.

At IonQ, David is helping pioneer the commercialization of quantum technology within the public sector, leading go-to-market efforts across state and local governments, higher education, and research institutions. His role places him at the forefront of one of the most consequential shifts in computing, working to translate IonQ's trapped-ion quantum systems into real-world applications for SLED customers.

Dr. Zhang's research focuses on developing novel security and intelligence techniques to ensure cyber/physical system reliability, security, and performance in multiple industries, including transportation, logistics, smart cities, healthcare, commerce, finance, government, etc. He is familiar with state-of-the-art research and technologies related to cyber and physical security, data science, software engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Zhang is equally dedicated to academic service and has organized more than 60 international conferences serving as steering, general, program, and workshop Chair/Co-Chair, and multiple times as a keynote Speaker. Dr. Zhang reviews papers for multiple journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Reliability, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, and IEEE Access.