An Audio Interview with Kelsey Ortiz, Ph.D. Student, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

It was lovely to meet with Kelsey Ortiz at the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) conference, the week of June 8-13, 2025 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.  It was fascinating to learn about Kelsey’s work involving quantum entanglement, and encryption.  It was an eye-opener during her presentation, when she sent a quantum entangled message to the International Space Station “live” at the conference.  As a consequence of her captivating talk, I asked her for an interview, and I was pleased she accepted.

Kelsey’s audio interview link follows, and below the link are time stamps of my specific questions, and the first few words of Kelsey’s answers for reference.

Question 1 (00:00): What is your role?

I am a Ph.D. student … and I am working on quantum information science experiments…

Question 2 (00:48): I attended your talk today.  Could you provide an overview?

My Ph.D. is involved with the SEAQUE (Space Entanglement and Annealing QUantum Experiment).  It uses a compact polarized quantum entanglement source mounted on the outside of the International Space Station…

Question 3 (02:10): Why is this useful?

A quantum network has several applications, such as security protocols … like quantum-key-distribution…

Question 4 (04:00): There can be problems with quantum entanglement now, could you explain this?

For example, connecting quantum computers you will need a quantum network, so we need a quantum repeater … which requires entanglement swapping…

Question 5 (06:50): A quantum encrypted message could be a simple message, an email for example?

If you are encrypting the message … with quantum-key-distribution, its secure from an eavesdropper…

… also, I will add that current encryption right now … people believe that quantum computers will be able to break present encryption … so then you need a quantum secure protocol…

Question 6 (08:03): What is your educational background?

I grew up in Pennsylvania … I was not the best student … but popular science books lead me to an interest in physics…

Question 7 (10:20): Is there anything from your childhood that you see in yourself now?

I think I will say it is being stubborn … I stick with it …

Question 8 (11:15): Do you have an example from when you were little when you were like that?

In high school I was an athlete … mostly playing soccer, that’s what I was known for, … not interested in school … and then when I got interested in school my friends were asking: “Why physics?”.

It was wonderful to interview Kelsey Ortiz, and I wish her the best of luck with completing her graduate studies, and with the new start-up she is involved with called Photon Queue (http://www.photonqueue.com), which has developed cutting-edge quantum memory devices!