Please join us for a conversation with Kevin Roche, an advisory engineer & scientist at IBM Research Almaden. He specializes in materials for magnetoelectronics, spintronics, and is an IBM Quantum Ambassador.  Kevin is an expert in ultra-high-vacuum systems, thin-film deposition, data acquisition and laboratory automation.  In addition to his career in tech, he enjoys speaking to the public about science and technology, as well as, making interesting projects that combine technology with his love of the arts and costuming.  Notable projects include the "Tiki Dalek" and the ThinBot bartending robot. 

Key Takeaways:

• [00:05 - 00:50] Intro to the episode
• [00:50 - 02:17] Intro to Kevin
• [04:32 - 07:02] IBM Research Almaden
• [07:16 - 09:41] A rundown of what goes on in the Almaden Lab
• [16:07 - 19:01] The community and wide variety of opportunities at IBM
• [21:58 - 25:27] Kevin's tech origin story
• [28:29 - 34:15] Kevin's side projects: Robots and Maker Faire

Resources:

Bartending Robots & Spintronics: ibm.com/blogs/research/2015/04/profile-of-an-ibm-scientist-kevin-roche

I’m a Maker and Costume Designer, Here’s Why I’m Learning Quantum Computing: medium.com/qiskit/im-a-maker-and-costume-designer-here-s-why-i-m-learning-quantum-computing-1972a51b43f7

Your Raspberry Pi running code on the IBM Quantum quantum processors via Python 3: github.com/KPRoche/quantum-raspberry-tie

Wearable light project - animated belt: github.com/KPRoche/BLE-Beetle-Pixels

IBM Quantum Composer: ibm.com/quantum-computing/tools