Quantum Machine Learning Hybrid Quantum Neural Networks Trainability Expressibility Barren Plateaus Parameterized Quantum Circuits Variational Quantum Algorithms Quantum Resource Estimation Benchmarking QML Algorithms Design Space Exploration QML Applications Noise-resilient QNNs Quantum Architecture Search GenAI for Quantum Hardware-aware QML Quantum Machine Learning Hybrid Quantum Neural Networks Trainability Expressibility Barren Plateaus Parameterized Quantum Circuits Variational Quantum Algorithms Quantum Resource Estimation Benchmarking QML Algorithms Design Space Exploration QML Applications Noise-resilient QNNs Quantum Architecture Search GenAI for Quantum Hardware-aware QML

Dr. Muhammad Kashif

Research Team Lead, eBRAIN Lab · Postdoctoral Research Associate, CQTS, New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at New York University Abu Dhabi working at the intersection of quantum algorithms, quantum computing systems, and quantum machine learning. My research investigates how quantum computational resources can be effectively utilized to achieve practical advantages in real-world applications through the development, analysis, and benchmarking of quantum algorithms. My expertise includes variational quantum algorithms, quantum optimization, resource-aware quantum computing, trainability analysis of parameterized quantum circuits, quantum advantage assessment and generative AI for quantum programming. By combining theoretical analysis with hardware-aware evaluation, I aim to develop scalable and practical quantum computing solutions for scientifically and societally impactful problems.

Publications
1000+ Citations
20 h-index
30 i10-index

Research focus

Trainability and expressibility of quantum neural networks, barren plateau mitigation, noise-resilient QNN design, and hybrid quantum-classical learning systems.

Broader interests

Hardware-aware quantum/QML algorithms, quantum architecture search, GenAI for quantum, quantum resource modeling, and QML applications in healthcare, classification, finance, robot navigation, and path planning.

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Architectures

Exploring how quantum layers interact with classical pre-processing and post-processing modules in hybrid learning systems. Research investigates when quantum layers provide practical benefits in representation learning, optimization, robustness, and generalization under near-term hardware constraints.

This includes hybrid quantum neural networks, hardware-aware architectures, noise-resilient QML, and resource-aware quantum neural architecture search methods.

Hybrid quantum-classical architectures

Trainability and Expressibility in QNNs

Investigating how trainability and expressibility interact in parameterized quantum circuits and hybrid quantum neural networks. This includes studying barren plateaus, gradient propagation, circuit depth/width trade-offs, and how hybrid architectures reshape optimization landscapes beyond standard PQC assumptions.

Current work focuses on understanding whether the commonly assumed expressibility–trainability trade-off still holds in hybrid quantum-classical models and how this impacts neural architecture search for QML systems.

Trainability and expressibility in QNNs

GenAI for Quantum Code Generation

Developing domain-specific datasets and evaluation pipelines for large language models focused on quantum code generation. This work studies whether curated quantum programming data can improve reliability, framework awareness, and hardware-aware code generation.

Current efforts include benchmarking domain-adapted models against state-of-the-art LLMs for PennyLane-centered and broader quantum software generation tasks.

GenAI for quantum code generation

Noise-Resilient Quantum Learning

Designing quantum learning models and training strategies that remain robust under realistic noise and imperfect quantum operations. This includes studying whether noise can sometimes aid optimization, improve generalization, or mitigate barren plateau effects in near-term quantum systems.

Current work explores noise-aware training, hardware-aware QML, quantum error mitigation, and robust hybrid architectures for deployment on NISQ-era processors.

Noise-resilient QML

Quantum Optimization and Applications

Exploring quantum machine learning and quantum optimization for real-world application domains including finance, healthcare, transportation, classification, and decision-making systems.

Research investigates how variational quantum algorithms and hybrid optimization workflows can provide scalable solutions under realistic computational and hardware constraints.

Quantum optimization and applications

Quantum Resource Modeling and Benchmarking

Building unified classical–quantum cost representations for benchmarking hybrid quantum systems under realistic deployment conditions. This includes FLOPs-aware HQNN analysis, analytical runtime estimation, and hardware-calibrated evaluation pipelines for comparing quantum and classical resource trade-offs.

The goal is to establish realistic benchmarking methodologies that move beyond idealized quantum evaluations and enable practical comparison between classical and hybrid systems.

Quantum resource modeling and benchmarking

Resource-Aware Hybrid Quantum Neural Architecture Search

Designing multi-objective neural architecture search frameworks for hybrid quantum neural networks, jointly optimizing accuracy, trainability, parameter efficiency, and hardware cost.

This work explores cross-domain co-adaptation between classical and quantum components while incorporating realistic resource constraints such as FLOPs, qubit overhead, routing complexity, and execution latency.

Resource-aware HQNN architecture search

Hardware-Aware Trainability and Expressibility of VQAs

This project investigates how hardware-aware compilation (transpilation) impacts the expressibility and trainability of variational quantum circuits. By benchmarking multiple ansatz families before and after transpilation. Preliminary analysis show that hardware constraints can significantly and non-monotonically alter these properties and that logical-level metrics are not reliable predictors of hardware-level behavior, emphasizing the need for hardware-aware design of quantum algorithms.

Hardware-Aware Trainability and Expressibility of VQAs

Quantum for Finance

Developing hybrid quantum-classical workflows for portfolio optimization, option pricing, risk analysis, and finance-oriented decision-making problems.

Current interests include quantum optimization algorithms, variational quantum circuits for financial modeling, and resource-aware quantum pipelines for practical financial applications.

Quantum for finance

Selected Publications

Highlighted papers related to quantum machine learning, hybrid quantum neural networks, trainability, and quantum algorithms.

Selected publications will appear after ORCID publications are loaded.

Full Publication List

Current Students

Hanzalah Mohamed Siraj

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Application-Specific Design Space Exploration of Quantum Neural Networks

Mary Bryzh

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Algorithms for unit committment

Aayan Ebrahim

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Spiking Neural Networks for Weather Forecasting

Mohamad Altrabulsi

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Spiking Network Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Robot Navigation

Catalin Botezat

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Hardware-Aware Hybrid Quantum Neural Architecture Search

Shaf Khalid

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topics: Quantum Neural Architecture Search; QML for Fraud Detection

Meriem Terki

Undergraduate Research Assistant · Algeria

Topic: Testing Framework for EvaluatingLLM-Generated Quantum Code

Muhammad Haider Asif

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Domain-Specific LLMs for Quantum Code Generation in PennyLane

Hariharan Janardhanan

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Data Synthesis for Automated Quantum Code Generation

Thesis Co-Supervision

Noise Mitigation Techniques for Reliable Quantum Neural Networks

M.Sc. Thesis Co-Supervision · Université Libre de Bruxelles · 2024–2025

M.Sc.

Comparative Analysis of Noise and Robustness Evaluation in Quantum Neural Networks

B.Sc. Thesis Co-Supervision · New York University Abu Dhabi · 2023–2024

B.Sc.

Hackathons & Mentoring

NYUAD Quantum Hackathon for Social Good

Mentor · 2024, 2025, 2026

Mentor Directory

Mentor

Quantum Computing Hackathon Pakistan

Mentor · 2026 · Team Achievement: 2nd Runner-Up

Hackathon Website

Mentor

Previous Students

Rehan Ahmed

Graduate Research Assistant · Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS), Pakistan

Topic: Quantum vs Classical Benchmarking for Financial Prediciton

Jawaher Kaldari

Master's thesis project · Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar

Topic:Quantum-Compatible Residual Learning for Graph Recurrent Neural Networks

Moonis Usman

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Algorithms for Option Pricing

Muhammad Umair Hafeez

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Algorithms for Portfolio Optimization

Abdul Samad Gomda

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Barren Plateaus and Parameter Initialization in Variational Quantum Algorithms

Nasser Mansour

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Reinforcement Learning for Fraud Detection

Tewoflos Girmay

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Photonic Quantum Neural Networks

Muhammad Hamza Arshad

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Error Correction

Helin Mazi

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Circuit Cutting

Emman Sychiuco

Undergraduate Research Assistant · New York University Abu Dhabi

Topic: Quantum Circuit Cutting

Rehan Ahmed

Graduate Research Assistant · Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS), Pakistan

Topic: Quantum vs Classical Benchmarking for Financial Prediciton

Talks and Presentations

Selected conference presentations and research talks.

ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC)

June 2025 · San Francisco, USA

Paper presentation on computational advantage in hybrid quantum neural networks.

DAC

IEEE Quantum Week / QCE

September 2025 · New Mexico, USA

Multiple paper presentation research on quantum algorithms and quantum machine learning.

Quantum Week

IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC)

December 2024 · San Diego, USA

Paper presentation on dilemma of barren plateaus and random parameter initialization in quantum neural networks.

ICRC

Workshop & Special Session Organization

Academic service focused on building research communities around quantum machine learning, GenAI, AI acceleration, and intelligent systems.

Applied Quantum Machine Learning: From Quantum Circuits to Smart Systems

2026 IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks · Maastricht, The Netherlands

Workshop organization on applied QML workflows connecting quantum circuits, learning systems, and smart real-world applications.

Workshop Website

QGenAI: Synergies between Quantum Computing and Generative Artificial Intelligence

2026 IEEE Quantum Week · Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Workshop organization exploring the intersection of quantum computing, generative AI, quantum software, and domain-specific AI systems.

Workshop Website

Technical Program Committee

Program committee service for workshops and conferences in quantum computing and AI.

IEEE International Workshop on Quantum Computing: Circuits, Systems, Automation, and Applications

TPC Member · QC-CSAA 2026 · Co-located with ISVLSI 2026

Technical program committee service for a workshop covering quantum circuits, systems, automation, and application-level quantum computing research.

Workshop Website

Hardware-Efficient AI Acceleration: Enabling Distributed Intelligence in 6G Radio Access Networks

TPC / Special Session Service · 2026 IEEE International Conference on ICT · Thessaloniki, Greece

Technical program committee service for a special session on hardware-efficient AI acceleration, distributed intelligence, and emerging 6G radio access networks.

Session Details

Review Activities

Peer-review service for journals and conferences across AI, quantum computing, software, and computational science.

Journals

IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence Expert Systems with Applications Journal of Computational Physics Computers & Electrical Engineering Neurocomputing SoftwareX

Conferences

IEEE IJCNN IEEE Quantum Week / QCE
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