Rate My Professor Steven Rayan

Steven Rayan is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Saskatchewan, where he is also an Associate Faculty Member in the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and serves as Interim Vice-Dean of Research, Scholarly, and Artistic Work in the College of Arts and Science. Rayan is the Director of the Centre for Quantum Topology and Its Applications (quanTA) and leads the university’s Signature Area of Research in Quantum Innovation. He is a member of Quantum Software Consortium Canada and serves as paper track co-chair for the Quantum End-to-End Hybrid Use Case Studies track at IEEE Quantum Week. His research focuses on the categorification of spaces and structures from quantum field theory and high-energy physics, quantum foundations including theoretical aspects of quantum information and quantum matter, and fundamental and applied aspects of quantum technologies such as quantum computing hardware, error correction, and algorithms. Rayan is an editor of the journal Research in the Mathematical Sciences and an affiliate faculty member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is also a member of the NSF GEAR Network and Geometry Labs United. He has received multiple University of Saskatchewan research and teaching awards.

Rayan has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on topics including Higgs bundles, quiver varieties, hyperbolic lattices, non-Abelian Hodge theory, and applications of algebraic geometry to quantum computing and topological matter. Recent works include papers on moduli stacks of quiver bundles, hyperbolic quantum error correction codes, and quantum kernel estimation. He has supervised graduate students in mathematics and interdisciplinary studies programs. Rayan has contributed to public outreach through a TEDx talk on the mathematics and art behind quantum concepts and an article in the Canadian Science Policy Magazine on grand challenges in quantum innovation.