PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

J. Wenner

Also known as James Wenner, Jim Wenner

J. Wenner is a physicist who worked on superconducting qubits, an attractive platform for quantum computing, in the Martinis group at UC Santa Barbara. They became a graduate student there in 2007 and were first author of papers on resonator losses in 2011, hot quasiparticles in 2013 and a microwave photon receiver in 2014. Among their coauthored papers are a 2014 Nature study of logic gates at the surface-code threshold, a 2015 Nature experiment on error detection across nine qubits and a 2016 simulation of molecular hydrogen energies. In 2017, they were among the authors, from UC Santa Barbara and Google's quantum AI lab, of an abstract on a small-scale quantum annealer, and in 2018 they coauthored a study that traced the largest energy-relaxation fluctuations in superconducting qubits to two-level-system defects.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2007

    Graduate student at UC Santa Barbara

    In 2007, they become a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, in the Martinis group.

  2. 2010–2011

    Losses in superconducting resonators

    In 2010, they are first author of an American Physical Society meeting abstract on radiation loss in superconducting coplanar resonators. In 2011, they are first author of "Surface loss simulations of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators", which finds the dominant surface loss at the metal-substrate and substrate-air interfaces.

  3. 2013

    Hot quasiparticles and qubits

    In 2013, Physical Review Letters publishes their first-author paper showing that hot non-equilibrium quasiparticles, with energies above the superconducting gap, raise the excited-state probability of a superconducting qubit.

  4. 2014

    Photon receiver and surface-code gates

    In 2014, they are first author of a Physical Review Letters paper on a deterministic quantum receiver that absorbs shaped microwave photons with 99.4% efficiency. In 2014, they also coauthor a Nature paper that demonstrates a universal set of logic gates in a superconducting multi-qubit processor, with a two-qubit gate fidelity up to 99.4%.

  5. 2015

    Error detection across nine qubits

    In 2015, they coauthor a Nature paper that protects classical states from bit-flip errors in a linear array of nine superconducting qubits. After eight cycles the failure rate falls by a factor of 8.5 relative to a single physical qubit.

  6. 2016

    Molecular energies on qubits

    In 2016, they coauthor "Scalable Quantum Simulation of Molecular Energies" in Physical Review X, which uses a programmable array of superconducting qubits to compute the energy surface of molecular hydrogen with two quantum algorithms.

  7. 2017

    A small-scale quantum annealer

    In 2017, they are among the authors, from UC Santa Barbara and Google's Quantum A.I. Lab, of an American Physical Society meeting abstract reporting progress on a small-scale quantum annealer built from fluxmon qubits and tunable couplers.

  8. 2018

    Energy-relaxation fluctuations in qubits

    In 2018, they coauthor "Fluctuations of Energy-Relaxation Times in Superconducting Qubits" in Physical Review Letters, which uses qubits as probes of individual two-level-system defects and shows that these defects are responsible for the largest fluctuations.

Career

  1. 2017Google

Education

  1. From 2007University of California, Santa BarbaraGraduate student

From the biography.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  2. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Google. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  3. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Google. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  4. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Google. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Martinis Group - People web.physics.ucsb.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Radiative Losses in Superconducting Coplanar Resonators - APS March Meeting 2010 PostDeadline meetings.aps.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. [1107.4698] Surface loss simulations of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. [1209.1674] Excitation of superconducting qubits from hot non-equilibrium quasiparticles arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. [1311.1180] Catching Shaped Microwave Photons with 99.4% Absorption Efficiency arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. [1402.4848] Logic gates at the surface code threshold: Superconducting qubits poised for fault-tolerant quantum computing arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. [1411.7403] State preservation by repetitive error detection in a superconducting quantum circuit arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. [1512.06860] Scalable Quantum Simulation of Molecular Energies arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Progress towards a small-scale quantum annealer I: Architecture - APS March Meeting 2017 PostDeadline meetings.aps.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. [1809.01043] Fluctuations of Energy-Relaxation Times in Superconducting Qubits arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.