The Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) has appointed Dr. Jean-Luc Cambier as the Regional Innovation Officer of The Bloch Quantum, the US Economic Development Administration–designated Tech Hub that is led by the CQE. Cambier — who brings decades of experience in federal research and development — will also serve as the CQE’s in-house technical lead.
Cambier, who joined the CQE on June 1, will steer The Bloch’s strategy and oversee large-scale initiatives aimed at accelerating the development of quantum technologies that strengthen US economic and national security.
He also will lead the CQE’s industry partnerships, a primary driver of The Bloch’s work, and will work with industry to explore the adoption of quantum tech for their businesses.
“Jean-Luc brings a rare combination of technical depth, public sector insight, and strategic vision that will be invaluable to both The Bloch and the CQE as we scale our commercialization and workforce development efforts,” said David Awschalom, founding director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange and the Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago. “We are excited to welcome him to the CQE team.”
Cambier most recently served as program director in the Office of the US Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)), where he directed and managed the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the Laboratory-University Collaboration Initiative, and other domestic and international programs that relied on both his expertise and his ability to engage stakeholders from government, academia, and industry. This included creating joint research projects with Finland, South Korea, and the United Kingdom; leading a collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on AI research; and developing a strategy for research on innovative mathematics for computational social science.
“The United Nations declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science. This is especially propitious, as the rate of progress in quantum information technology has been rapidly accelerating. The CQE has been a center of it all, and I am excited and honored to become part of it,” Cambier said.
Prior to his role at USD(R&E), Cambier was technical adviser and managed the Computational Mathematics portfolio at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), where he advised program managers on creating and advocating for new research thrusts and led the creation of R&D strategies for the AFOSR and the US Air Force. This followed a career as research scientist and group leader in multiple fields of science and engineering in the US Department of Defense, NASA, and industry. He created several research programs of high priority to the US Air Force and Department of Defense such as quantum information science and quantum materials, game theory, network science, and complexity theory.