UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Christopher Kube, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
The Distinguished Faculty Scholar Program supports faculty members who spend eight to 12 weeks at LANL, often accompanied by their students, to strengthen research collaborations and advance new initiatives in materials science. The Distinguished Faculty Scholar Program is administered through LANL’s Institute for Materials Science and is awarded to a select group of faculty each year based on research excellence, leadership and alignment with the laboratory’s strategic priorities. The program is designed to foster long-term partnerships between universities and the laboratory, develop pipelines for the laboratory workforce and enhance Los Alamos’ reputation within the international materials science community, according to the program’s website.
Kube's research at LANL will explore the use of quantum computers for simulating elastic wave propagation, or how vibrations move through various materials in specific ways, like earthquakes or soundwaves. Wave simulations underpin critical applications across multiple fields, from nondestructive evaluation of engineered components to materials characterization and geoseismic exploration. Classical computers face fundamental limitations when simulating waves in large, complex domains, according to Kube. Quantum computing offers a promising alternative that could dramatically expand what is computationally tractable, he said.
“This fellowship represents an exciting opportunity to explore a completely new research direction at the intersection of quantum computing and wave physics,” Kube said. “Quantum computers offer fundamentally different approaches to solving wave propagation problems that have challenged classical computation for decades. I'm also grateful that Los Alamos has also been supporting my doctoral student Nathan Leo, who is an integral part of the Penn State/LANL collaborative team carrying out this work. Working alongside world-class researchers like Ricardo Lebensohn from LANL gives us access to expertise and perspectives that would be difficult to replicate anywhere else.”
In addition to Lebensohn, Kube and Leo will work with a collaborative team at LANL to investigate how quantum algorithms can be adapted to solve wave equations, with the long-term goal of enabling simulations that are currently beyond reach.