2026 Annual All Center Retreat
February 15-18, 2026 | University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Schedule:
Sunday, February 15th
| Day 0 (Sunday, February 15, 2026) Travel Day | ||||
| Time | Session | Speaker | Attendees | Location |
| TBD | Shuttles from Bradley International to Amherst will be scheduled | |||
| 6:00pm - 8:00pm | Informal Mixer | Amherst Room | ||
| Day 1 (Monday, February 16, 2026) | ||||
| Time | Session | Speaker | Attendees | Location |
| 8:30am- 9:00am | Breakfast | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 9:00am- 10:00am | Welcome Announcements: Center Updates + Renewal Items | Brianna Moreno, Saikat Guha | All members | Room 163C |
| 10:00am- 11:30am | How to participate in CQN Testbeds? (Boston, Maryland, and Virtual) | Chao Li, Chaohan Cui, Stefan Krastanov | All members | Room 163C |
| 11:30am- 11:45am | Break | All members | Room 163C | |
| 11:45am- 1:00pm | Thrust Student Updates (10 min + 5 min Q&A) | All members | Room 163C | |
| Thrust 2: Adaptive Entanglement Distillation | Sijie Cheng (UA) | All members | Room 163C | |
| Thrust 2: ZALM modeling with Gaussian states | Gabe Richardson (UMD) | All members | Room 163C | |
| Thrust 2: Hybrid Quantum Repeaters | Stav Haldar (UMass) | All members | Room 163C | |
| Thrust 2: Frequency conversion with bandwidth expansion for quantum networks | Francesca Sansavini (UO) | All members | Room 163C | |
| TBD | TBD | All members | Room 163C | |
| 1:00pm- 2:00pm | Lunch | All members | Amherst Room | |
| ReU QuEST Breakout Session | ||||
| 2:00pm- 3:30pm | Parallel Joint Paper Idea Sessions | Discussion lead | All members | Room 163C |
| Topic 1 - Architectures for scalable entanglement generation in spin-based memories (midpoint swap or source, GKP based high-rate entanglement, multi-qubit direct entanglement via multi-fusion, reflective vs. absorptive, ZALM vs SPDC, etc.) | Saikat Guha | 1/3 of attendees | Room 163C | |
| Topic 2 - Noise-and-architecture aware error correcting codes for quantum repeaters and networks (hybrid quantum systems, 1-vs-2 way, all-photonic) | Narayanan Rengaswamy | 1/3 of attendees | Room 163C | |
| Topic 3 - Satellite assisted quantum communications and networking: architectures and performance evaluation | Don Towsley | 1/3 of attendees | Room 163C | |
| 3:30pm- 3:45pm | Break | All members | Room 163C | |
| 3:45pm- 5:00pm | Parallel Joint Paper Idea Sessions: Report Out | All members | Room 163C | |
| 6:00pm- 8:00pm | Reception | All members | Amherst Room | |
| Day 2 (Tuesday, February 17, 2026) | ||||
| Time | Session | Speaker | Attendees | Location |
| 7:30am- 9:00am | Breakfast | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 8:00am- 9:00am | EAB Meeting | EAB members | Room 163C | |
| 8:30am- 9:00am | Prep for Poster Session | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 9:00am- 10:30am | Poster Session | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 10:30am- 10:45am | Transition Break | All members | ||
| 10:45am- 11:15am | Thrust 4 Updates | Jonathan Ruane | All members | Room 163C |
| 11:15am- 1:00pm | Thrust Student Updates (10 min + 5 min Q&A) | All members | Room 163C | |
| 1:00pm- 2:00pm | Lunch | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 2:00pm- 2:45pm | Evaluation: Project Mapping Session | Emily Goff | All members | Room 163C |
| 2:45pm- 3:00pm | Perfect Pitch Introduction | Noel Hennessey | All members | Room 163C |
| 3:00pm- 3:30pm | Student and Postdoc Leadership Council - Discussions and Call for Nominations | Sandra Al Hames | All members | Room 163C |
| 3:30pm- 4:00pm | QREATE Proposal Winner Presentation | |||
| 6:00pm- 8:00pm | Reception | All members | Amherst Room | |
| Day 3 (Wednesday, February 18, 2026) | ||||
| Time | Session | Speaker | Attendees | Location |
| 7:30am- 9:00am | Breakfast | All members | Amherst Room | |
| 9:00am- 12:00pm | Open collaboration time | All members | Room 163C | |
| 12:00pm- 2:00pm | Lunch | All members | ||
| 2:00pm - TBD | Shuttles to Bradley and Boston | |||
Transportation:
Attendees are responsible for arranging their own airfare/ground transportation.
If you are flying into Bradley International Airport on Sunday, Feb 15, shuttles will be arranged. Please note in your registration if you'd like to take part in the shuttles.
Recommended airport in Bradley International.
Lodging:
A room block is being set up at Hotel UMass. Please ensure your arrival and departure dates on correct in your registration as these will be used for booking the rooms. Please note that students will be lodging with roommates. REGISTER BY JAN 15 to make the room block!
Food:
Meals during the retreat will be provided
Travel Funding:
Transportation to and from the retreat will be reimbursed to attendees by CQN. Meals and lodging will be provided during the retreat.