SCITECH

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Yale joins as research partner in $25 million Quantum Leap Challenge Institute

BY BRIAN ZHANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

As of Sept. 2, Yale has been serving as a key academic partner of the Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation, a project aimed at developing new technologies by achieving a better understanding of quantum systems.

The project was established thanks to $25 million of funding from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to expand its network of three existing quantum institutes in the United States. The project was created alongside a fifth institute that specializes in quantum biological sensing.

Led by professor of computer science Andrew Childs at the University of Maryland, the project currently consists of experts from several other academic institutions, including Yale, Princeton, Duke and North Carolina State University.

Shruti Puri, assistant professor with the Yale Department of Applied Physics, is spearheading the University’s contributions to the institute.

There are also researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology involved in the project. “Though quantum computing is an emerging technology … it is clear that it has the potential to let us do things that would not be possible with classical computers. … [It could] be used for pharmaceuticals or designing catalysts … [or] cur[ing] diseases,” Childs said. When asked about his personal motivation to participate in the project, Jeff Thompson ’07, the leader of the institute’s branch at Princeton, cited the unique opportunities that this collaboration afforded for “let[ting] a lot of creative ideas be exchanged very quickly.” In addition to being multi-institutional, the initiative is also multidisciplinary, bringing together quantum scientists who identify with various branches of physics, computer science and engineering. The collaborative logistics of the project emphasize meetings and workshops between participating research institutions, along with more specialized work designated to the team at each institution, according to Thompson and Childs. Puri explained in an email to the News that her work for the project focuses on protecting quantum systems from exposure to various errors. Other aspects of the project that researchers are currently exploring include the interaction of quantum simulators with the environment and possible ways to use this understanding for scientific or technological applications. With each team of researchers focusing on a different area of quantum science, there is individual flexYALE DAILY NEWS ibility and freedom to pursue what they are each most passionate about — while maintaining the overarching thrust of the project, according to Childs. It might even be helpful for the various teams to “build the same experiment in several dif erent ways and make sure that you get the same answer across the dif erent approaches” to reinforce better understanding and accuracy of the project’s endeavors, Thompson said.

But the Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation also encompasses an educational aspect that is evermore necessary with the increasing demand for quantum computation specialists in the technology and engineering sectors, according to Childs. Recognizing that not everyone has a doctorate in physics and the quantum sciences, a historical requirement for workers in the fi eld, the project has sought to expand the fi eld’s inclusivity and recruit workers from other backgrounds, Thompson explained.

Through education and career-readiness partnerships with Morgan State University and North Carolina Central University — both historically Black colleges and universities — the project offers relevant courses and research opportunities to students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds in STEM. Thompson also referenced the extensive connections that the University of Maryland has with local K-12 organizations, explaining that the university may have plans to engage in developing and sustaining youth participation in quantum studies.

“The NSF is interested in really making these quantum leap challenge institutes broader than the universities that are currently members,” Childs said. “There’s a discussion going on now to make it possible for folks from other universities to get involved in research going on in the QLCIs.”

The institute is in its budding stages, with its research partners filling up administrative staff positions. Childs emphasized that the leaders are deciding how to prioritize the $25 million in funds they will be receiving from the NSF, a number that he said matches their ambitious proposal.

The NSF has awarded $9.6 million out of the $25 million to the project thus far.

Contact BRIAN ZHANG at brian.zhang@yale.edu .

First randomized trial on masking affirms efficacy, Yale study says

BY MAYA WEITZEN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

A new study coauthored by two Yale School of Management researchers af rmed that mask wearing reduced the spread of COVID-19 and that surgical masks, rather than cloth masks, were more ef ective in that reduction. The 300,000-person study was the fi rst randomized trial on mask ef cacy.

Yale professors of economics Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and Jason Abaluck, alongside a team of researchers from Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, conducted a cluster-randomized trial in rural Bangladesh that tested the intervention of community-level masking promotion from November 2020 to April 2021. The intervention reduced symptomatic seroprevalence — the presence of COVID-19 antibodies in the population — by 9.3 percent overall, 11.2 percent when surgical masks were used and more than 20 percent for individuals in the sample over the age of 50.

“Our study was organized in order to address two essential goals,” Mobarak said. “First, to identify strategies for us to consistently increase mask wearing in low- [and] middle-income countries, with Bangladesh being a representative example, and, second, to assess the impact of the initiative to increase mask wearing on symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

The study included 600 Bangladeshi villages and a total of 342,126 adults — 178,288 individuals in the treatment group and 163,838 in the control group, according to the paper. The intervention group was given free masks, information on the importance of masking, role modeling by community leaders and regular in-person reminders for eight weeks. The control group did not receive any interventions.

The researchers randomly assigned the different villages to the treatment versus control groups. Within the former group, they further randomized which villages would be given cloth masks as opposed to surgical ones, the paper explained.

Mask wearing and physical distancing were assessed through weekly direct observation at high-traf c public locations. At fi ve-week and nineweek follow ups, reachable participants were surveyed about COVID-19 symptoms as defi ned by the World Health Organization, according to the paper.

Mobarak, who is originally from Bangladesh, said the trial was conducted there to “continue a long standing tradition of Bangladesh teaching the world about how to improve health outcomes, especially among rural poor populations, in a cost-effective way.”

Mobarak also cited the abilities to carry out high-volume data collection, mask manufacturing, blood sampling and COVID-19 testing in Bangladesh as additional motivators for conducting the trial in Bangladesh.

By the end of the study period, the researchers found that the promotion of masks increased proper mask wearing to 42.3 percent in the treatment villages, compared to 13.3 percent in control villages. This tripling of mask usage was sustained during the intervention period and for two weeks after, according to the paper. The impact of the intervention dropped to 26 percent after five months — the duration of the study — but remained

JESSAI FLORES/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

10 percentage points higher in the intervention group. The treatment also reduced symptomatic seroprevalence by 9.3 percent overall, with villages randomized to surgical masks showing a relative reduction of 11.2 percent.

“A lot of conversation around mask usage previously had been that there had never been a randomized, controlled trial that demonstrated that masks were ef ective in both interrupting and preventing disease,” said Stephen Luby, professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University and a coauthor of the study. “This really was a gold standard trial and was able to demonstrate just that.”

In addition to seeing a widespread ef ect of the implementation, the elderly were a particular subgroup that experienced a higher reduction of symptomatic seroprevalence with surgical masks — 23 percent for individuals ages 50 to 60 and 35 percent for those over 60. The higher reduction may be due to the elderly having smaller social networks, or simply because mask wearing lowered viral loads under the threshold that is susceptible to transmission in older subgroups, Abaluck said.

To conduct a study of this magnitude, researchers said that coordination between a variety of research specialties was especially important.

“It’s been a truly interdisciplinary project,” Laura Kwong, an assistant professor in environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley and fellow coauthor, said. “We were able to reach across fi elds to work with other professionals to really create something much bigger than one could create alone. It’s been great to have economists, public health specialists, engineers, behavioral scientists and biostatisticians, among others, collaborating on this ef ort.”

Moving forward, this research group is working to expand upon their work.

According to Abaluck, they are planning to conduct a close replication of the original study in order to test the ef ectiveness of masking against the delta variant and asymptomatic transmission.

“Our goal in the next couple of months is to reach around 100 million people,” Abaluck said. “But we hope to do even more than that. We are working on scaling up while maintaining some fidelity of the original intervention.”

His team is currently working with others to expand this study throughout South Asia and then to other parts of the world.

Given the study’s findings on the importance of masking, it is important to focus on using it in conjunction with other public health tools, according to Sydney Jones, a senior technical advisor in epidemiology at the global public health organization Vital Strategies.

“We need to use the tools available together,” Jones said. “We have the tool of vaccines. It’s vital that we vaccinate as many people as possible. But, we also have masking, social distancing and avoiding crowded spaces. We should be using all of these in a complementary way to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Yale University requires all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks indoors while on campus.

Contact MAYA WEITZEN at maya.weitzen@yale.edu .

SPORTS

In-person club sports make comeback

VAIBHAV SHARMA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

During the 2020-21 season, club teams were unable to hold formal practices due to stringent pandemic protocols.

CLUB SPORTS FROM PAGE 14

ule because they have yet to hear back from the gym, which has been overbooked for the past few weeks. Furthermore, like Kravitz, Sinclair indicated that the 20 person gathering limit would require signifi cant adjustments, such as increasing the number of shifts for tryouts.

Other team captains also expressed frustration with regards to the imbalances between club sport policy and varsity sport policy. For example, the current club sports policy limits fans at outdoor events to 50, all while Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications Mike Gambardella told the News that there is no capacity limit for spectators at the Yale Bowl, John J. Lee Amphitheater, Reese Stadium or Johnson Field.

“There is an obvious disparity between what the club sports policies are and what the varsity sports policies are,” Sorensen said. “Varsity sports have been practicing for six weeks while club sports haven’t been allowed to go to the fi elds yet; it just doesn’t make any sense to me. The fact that the Yale administration is willing to accept calculated risk with varsity teams but not with club sports is just disappointing.”

In response to these discrepancies in policies between varsity and club sports, Gambardella stated that Yale’s COVID-19 Response Team is requiring club sports and intramurals to follow University gathering limits. Varsity sports do not have to follow those rules.

Nevertheless, the upcoming season of club sports remains a source of excitement for club sports captains around campus.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back to the barn,” Griggs remarked. “For members of our team, the barn is a great place to not only play polo, but also relieve stress and serve as a refuge from campus.”

For a full list of club sports of ered at Yale, students can visit the club sport directory.

Contact ALEX YE at alex.ye@yale.edu .

Kingman preps for fi rst home game

HANDSOME DAN FROM PAGE 14

him running from group to group of Yalies studying and relaxing in the University’s many courtyards, eager for playtime and pets. Quick to follow is Haro, sometimes carrying a pack of Handsome Dan stickers for the lucky students.

With Kingman, the goal is to get students to regularly experience the excitement of meeting Handsome Dan — and not just at athletic events, Haro said.

This has already come true for the residents of Silliman College, which Kingman and Haro call home.

“I saw Kingman a lot while living in Silliman this summer,” said Jeff Pham ’24, who attested to Kingman’s ability to energize people wherever he goes, especially when it is time for the big day at the Yale Bowl. “A big draw of live sports is the crowd atmosphere, especially when everyone is cheering for the same thing. Handsome Dan will definitely be an exciting and important part of gameday.”

Still, there will be a lot to learn from Kingman’s first big football game, which Haro sees as a “trial run” for future events. Even with his experience interacting with smaller groups of the Yale community on campus, it is impossible to replicate the gameday spectacle of horns blaring from the Yale Precision Marching Band, let alone the roar of a stadium packed with fans.

According to a representative from Bark Busters Home Dog Training, a company with dog trainers across the country including New Haven, a college football game can be a huge source of stress for young dogs. Too many things happening at once can lead to high anxiety and a lack of focus, depending on how he has been trained so far. Should Kingman find himself uncomfortable or stressed, a good solution for the long term, according to Bark Busters, “is to look for a root cause or trigger behind what causes symptoms of distress at the game and focus on that with positive reinforcement like treats.”

Haro already has a plan in place so Kingman can be his best self this Saturday. Between going on the field during warmups and meeting with fans in the stands, Kingman will have a cushy place to nap and rehydrate in one of the Yale Bowl’s air-conditioned luxury suites, if not his comfy outside bed Haro intends on bringing.

“We’ve done a lot of work on noticing cues,” Haro said. “So we’ll know when he’s tired or irritated, when we need to take him out. Kingman’s wellbeing is my top priority.”

The Saturday game will commence at 12 p.m.

Contact KYLIE VOLAVONGSA at kylie.volavongsa@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF JESSIE CHEUNG

At Saturday’s game, Kingman will have a place to nap and rehydrate in one of the Yale Bowl’s air-conditioned luxury suites.

Cowles twins sail on

SAILING FROM PAGE 14

ing on separate boats. Last weekend, the sisters raced in their fi rst Yale meet at home at the Harry Anderson Trophy, where they took turns skippering on Yale’s second boat. Together, they placed fi fth out of 18 teams.

But long before they started sailing for the Elis, the Cowles twins set their foundation in sailing with the “Opti.” As they grew out of the beginner boat, the two transitioned to the double-handed International 420 boat class — Carmen became the skipper, while Emma, who is slightly taller, took the role of crew.

They noted that by sailing together on the same boat, their parents did not need to maintain two boats or juggle two sailing schedules. To help distinguish between themselves on the water, Carmen began wearing a red hat, while Emma began wearing a black one. The colors stuck.

The sisters’ teamwork and chemistry on the water certainly paid off as they won the 2017 and 2018 420 Girls World Sailing Youth World Championships. Their talent in these events paved the way for their win of the 2018 U.S. Sailing Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, the first time the honor was awarded to a pair since 2004. The Cowles are also the second youngest to win the award.

“One of the strengths that Carmen and Emma possess is an ability to learn from mistakes,” Steve Keen — the Cowles coach while they were sailing I-420 boats — told Sailing World in 2019.

While they spent their whole career sailing together, they were prepared to compete for separate schools when they began considering collegiate sailing options.

“We had both agreed that we were indif erent to whether [or

COURTESY OF CARMEN AND EMMA COWLES

The Cowles twins, natives of the Long Island Sound, have been sailing together since they were nine years old.

not] we went to the same school,” they told the News. “We both wanted to be on a competitive sailing team in college so that narrowed down the list.”

As one of only 36 fully funded varsity sailing programs in the country, Yale’s team piqued the twins’ interest because of the liberal arts aspect of the University.

When the pair applied to Yale, they always planned on taking one gap year between high school and college, meaning they would have started in New Haven in the class of 2024. However, they took a second year off due to the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Sailing as a team at the U.S. Olympic trials earlier this year, they placed second. Only the top team qualifies for the Olympics.

Because of the pandemic, the sisters had to adapt their practice routine to minimize travel risks. Between spring 2020 and early 2021, Emma and Carmen trained in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; and Vilamoura, Portugal, spending a few months in each location.

Because many international competitions were canceled due to COVID-19, it was difficult for the twins to compare themselves to their opponents.

“We also didn’t travel nearly as much for training camps,” they admitted. “[This] actually proved to help us be very productive in our training and ultimately exponentiate our learning curve.”

Now settled into New Haven — Carmen is in Silliman College, while Emma is in Trumbull — Emma noted that she loves the competitiveness of the Yale sailing program, which makes scrimmages in practice more fun. Meanwhile, Carmen appreciates learning from the dif erent sailors on the team.

The Yale sailing program competes at five tournaments this weekend: the Mens’ New England Singlehanded Championship, the Barnett Trophy, the Womens’ Regis Trophy, the Hatch Brown Trophy and a Tufts Invite.

Yale cross country fi nishes third at HYP

XC FROM PAGE 14

In the women’s race on Saturday, Princeton defeated Harvard 36–37, while Yale fi nished with 49 points, a total calculated by summing the fi nal positions of each team’s fi rst five runners. DeLay set the pace with a 16:10.8, running at a clip that likely would have lifted her to a new career best if the race was a full fi ve kilometers. To start the 2019 season, she ran a career-record 17:28 in a fi ve-kilometer against Harvard at the Yale Golf Course.

The Yale star and captain, who led the Elis in every race she ran in fall 2019, fi nished a comfortable 7.7 seconds ahead of Harvard’s Isabell Sagar in second. DeLay, who took a gap year last year, led the race consistently — she was in the lead pack after one mile and had jumped out to about a nine second lead by the time runners hit the 3.4-kilometer mark.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s been two years since the beginning of the last cross country season,” DeLay said. “After this year, I am just so grateful to even have the opportunity to defend my Heps title this season. I was fortunate to be able to race a bit in the spring and summer, so coming back this past weekend was a bit less of a rust buster for me than it was for most.”

Zoe Nuechterlein ’22, a former managing editor of the News’ magazine, fi nished second for Yale and seventh overall with a 16:36.3 fi nish.

“HYP was our fi rst race as a team in a year and a half, so we wanted to get out there, compete and get a feel for racing again,” Nuechterlein said. “This was a rust-buster race, and we have a lot of training and racing to look forward to over the next couple of months.”In order, Maddie Ghazarian ’22, Jocelyn Chau ’22, Kosana Weir ’23, Julia Dvorak ’24 and Kylie Goldfarb ’25 rounded out the top seven for the Bulldogs. Ghazarian, who was running the fi rst race of her Yale career after not competing in 2018 through 2020, fi nished in 10th, while Chau, Weir, Dvorak and Goldfarb came in at 15th, 16th, 19th and 21st, respectively.

Both the Yale men and women next compete on Sept. 24.

Contact MARGARET HEDEMAN at margaret.hedeman@yale.edu and WILLIAM MCCORMACK at william.mccormack@yale.edu .