Dr William Zeng
Dr. William Zeng will use the O'Shaughnessy Fellowship $100,000 grant to pursue open-source quantum computing.
Dr. William Zeng leads a quantum computing research group at Goldman Sachs and is founder and President of the Unitary Fund, a non-profit dedicated to developing the quantum ecosystem to benefit the most people. His research focuses on quantum computer architecture, algorithms and software.
He previously led initial development of Rigetti Computing's quantum cloud platform, and is co-inventor of the Quil quantum instruction language.
He received his PhD in quantum algorithms from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and his BSc. in Physics from Yale University. He was named to Forbes 30 under 30 in the Science category for his work on quantum computing.
Dr. Zeng will use his Fellowship to study how emerging quantum technologies can explore foundational questions in quantum mechanics. This next generation of experimental tests will probe fundamental aspects of nature, by considering what it means for something to be an observation / some-being to be an observer.
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Nat & Martha Sharpe
Nat & Martha Sharpe will use the O'Shaughnessy Fellowship $100,000 grant to study and make documentary films of alternative childhood education schools.
Nat and Martha Sharpe have been a creative team for over a decade. Nat was a film school graduate and Martha a storytelling enthusiast. They fell in love while filming a musical parody of "Beowulf"with their friends.
After another comedy and two documentaries, they started having children. Focus shifted from art to survival. Even as struggling new parents, the Sharpes found small ways to keep creating and telling stories.
Together, they learned to code, got off food stamps, and traveled around America in an RV. Today, Nat and Martha homeschool their 5 kids and are eager to explore alternative education, expand their comfort zones, and—as always—make movies.
Nat and Martha will use their Fellowship (jointly) to investigate and document how we can prepare kids for a future where no career is safe. Is self-directed learning the answer? What happens when we let kids learn whatever they want? They will film and share the stories of the people who embody these questions.