Bio
Travis Humble is director of the Quantum Science Center, a Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and director of the lab’s Quantum Computing Institute. Travis is leading the development of new quantum technologies and infrastructure to impact the DOE missions of science, energy and security. As director of the QSC, Travis leads the innovation of scalable, hybrid computing platforms that integrate quantum computers with leadership-class high-performance computing systems. Travis also designs and develops new applications and algorithms for quantum-centric HPC that accelerate science and transition quantum technologies to the broadest audience.
Travis was the founding director of the OLCF Quantum Computing User Program, which provides merit-based access to quantum computing technologies for a broad base of scientific users. Quantum computing offers revolutionary new approaches to familiar computational problems by reducing algorithmic complexity, computational resource requirements, like power and communication, and increasing the scale at which state-of-the-art scientific applications perform.
Travis is the inaugural editor-in-chief for ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing and co-chair of the IEEE Quantum Initiative. Travis also holds a joint faculty appointment with the University of Tennessee Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education working with students on energy-efficient computing solutions. Travis received a doctorate in theoretical chemistry from the University of Oregon.
Awards
2025 UT-Battelle, Distinguished Researcher Award
2025 Future Generation Computer Systems, Best Paper Award, for T. Beck et al., “Integrating quantum computing resources into scientific HPC ecosystems”
2025 Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Center Award: The Quantum Science Center
2025 Department of Energy, National Laboratory Directors' Council, Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program
2024 Best Paper Award for "Visual Analytics of Performance of Quantum Computing Systems and Circuit Optimization" at the ISVLSI Workshop on Quantum Computing with Junghoon Chae and Chad Steed
2024 R&D100 Award for "MAQ: Machine Learning on Adiabatic Quantum Computers" with Prasanna Date, Kathleen Hamilton, Robert Patton, and Thomas Potok
2023 Best Paper Award for "Noise-Resilient and Reduced Depth Approximate Adders for NISQ Quantum Computing" at IEEE Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI with Bhaskar Gaur and Himanshu Thapliyal
2020 ORNL Significant Event Award for “First Applications-Inspired Quantum Computer Performance Benchmark Realizing Chemical Accuracy”
2020 Best Paper Award for "Characterizing the Stability of NISQ Devices" at IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering, with Samudra Dasgupta
2019 Federal Laboratory Consortium Excellence in Technology Transfer Award for "Qrypt Licensing of Quantum Random Number Generator from ORNL"
2019 Department of Energy Office of Science Advanced Computing Research Program Office Accelerated Research in Quantum Computing award
2018 Department of Energy Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program office for Materials and Chemical Sciences Research for Quantum Information Science
2018 Department of Energy Office of Science High-energy Physics program office for QuantISED
2017 ORNL Significant Event Award for Setting a World Record in Quantum Communication
2016 Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Research Program
Trademarks and Patents
2025 US Provisional Patent Application 63/672,211: QVis Interactive Quantum Circuit Optimization Module
2016 US Patent Award #9,436,436: Self-correcting random number generator
2015 US Patent Award #9,172,698: System and Method for Key Generation in Security Tokens
2009 US Patent Award #12/424,957: Tampering detection system using quantum-mechanical systems