![\"Morgan](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2026\/10\/Morgan_Beck_Headshot-683x1024.jpeg\")
There, Beck and fellow college students from around the country learned in hands-on programming labs how quantum algorithms, when applied to specific problems, can outperform classical computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beck\u2019s time as a student at Brookhaven impressed David Biersach, a lab staffer in Brookhaven\u2019s Information Technology Division and QIS101 professor, so much that he asked Beck to return the following year as a teaching assistant, sharing her wealth of knowledge with other college students\u2014a prime example of the student becoming the teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI loved this course so much, and I was very happy to go back to Brookhaven as a teaching assistant when they asked me,\u201d said Beck, who graduated from URI this past spring with degrees in physics and applied math. \u201cWhat was enjoyable to me as I was teaching was seeing how students approach quantum problems from different perspectives, and there was mutual growth as I looked at quantum from my own lens. I learned just as much from the students during that time as they did from me, which made this experience worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2026\/10\/Luke-Ellert-Beck-768x1024.jpeg\")
Beck\u2019s teaching experience became the genesis for URI to further its relationship with Brookhaven by sending students to learn in the lab directly through the QIS101 program and become teaching assistants. Multiple URI students, including quantum computing master\u2019s student Matt Sarsam, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Luke Ellert-Beck, a fifth-year Ph.D. physics student from Dubuque, Iowa, have helped mentor other collegiate minds in quantum physics at the prominent physics lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, URI students Emory Salaun, a graduate student from Providence studying computer science; Austin Higinbotham, a graduate student in physics from Peabody, Massachusetts; Logan Cote, a physics major from Goffstown, New Hampshire, have all recently taken QIS101 as students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis interaction with University of Rhode Island students is helping cement our relationship with Brookhaven. This is key, because the new guidelines for research and funding encourages the interaction between universities and national labs,\u201d URI Department of Physics<\/a> Chair Leonard Kahn<\/a> said. \u201cWe’ve established a very good connection, and it’s been reinforced through the work of these students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Sharing knowledge, building relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brookhaven supports national security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. Students enrolled in the QIS101 course learn how to use IBM Qiskit\u2014a world-class software package for working with quantum computers\u2014and hear discussions and lectures from quantum scientists and Brookhaven researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kahn said the importance of URI collaborating with Brookhaven with students taking QIS101 is threefold. The imminent emergence of quantum computing and its expected impact on society is the first major reason, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, it\u2019s crucial because of the importance of collaboration between academic institutions and government labs in federal funding, Kahn said, and third because of the benefits University students gain through this additional experience. \u201cOur students have reported accelerated learning through the course work and their work as teaching assistants,\u201d Kahn said. Giving that feedback was critical not just for students to thrive in the fast-paced course, but also for Sarsam to excel as an educator, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAny student can write code and get the correct output, but that code may not generalize correctly,\u201d Sarsam said. \u201cSo, making sure you help students where they did well and where they didn\u2019t is crucial. It\u2019s important to help create a good learning experience for students to help them get better at their work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ellert-Beck enjoyed helping students simplify information and key points from QIS101\u2019s lengthy lectures so that students could grasp quantum physics and computing more easily. Seeing the Brookhaven students\u2019 excited reactions after gaining that understanding, especially on more advanced topics, was fulfilling, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was one lecture that was really mathematical, and I wanted the students to slow down and teach what they learned to each other, then teach it back to me,\u201d Ellert-Beck said. \u201cWhen it clicked, they began engaging with that mathematical information and started to thrive from that point forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beck, Sarsam and Ellert-Beck agreed that their experiences as TAs for Brookhaven has opened the door for them to possibly become teachers down the line\u2014potentially helping more students become educated in the science. Kahn firmly believes that URI\u2019s partnership with Brookhaven will continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s very gratifying to hear from David Biersach about how our students have been so outstanding in Brookhaven\u2019s program. He wants us to continue to send students there, both as TAs and as students in the course,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cHe thinks what we’re producing here is excellent. I suspect that we’ll have several of our students continue as TAs, or join as TAs, to participate in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 20, 2026 \u2013 As a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island three years ago, Morgan Beck \u201926 began diving deep into the world of quantum physics, wanting to learn more about the branch of science that studies matter and energy at the most fundamental level. At that time, Beck\u2014a 2025 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":111520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1907,12,1905],"class_list":["post-111512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-academic-excellence","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111512"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111522,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111512\/revisions\/111522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2026\/10\/Matt_Sarsam-623x1024.jpeg\")
Both Sarsam and Ellert-Beck became Brookhaven teaching assistants without taking the QIS101 course as students, utilizing the knowledge they obtained in URI\u2019s quantum programs to share with other top quantum students taking QIS101. Sarsam said providing students feedback on their challenging coding classwork was among the things he enjoyed the most as a TA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n