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PhD in Computer Science

Jessica Pointing

2018 Cohort

Reading, England

Jessica Pointing, from Reading, England, is pursuing a PhD in computer science at Stanford School of Engineering. She aspires to work on practical applications of quantum computing in fields such as machine learning, medicine, and energy systems. She graduated from Harvard University, earning a bachelor’s degree in physics and computer science with a citation in Danish, after spending her first two years of university studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has interned as a software engineer at Google, management consultant at McKinsey & Company, investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and strategist at Morgan Stanley. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Optimize Guide, a blog about life optimization, and founded the Now Know Organization, which received funding from Google to teach technology to young people. She also founded the MIT Philosophy Club and Harvard College Quantum Computing Association. She has been awarded the McKinsey Women’s Impact Award, MIT Freshman Award for Distinguished Achievement in Leadership, and has been named a Google Anita Borg Scholar and John Harvard Scholar. She has also received scholarships from Microsoft, Adobe Research, Society of Women Engineers, and Society of Geophysicists.

Education

PhD in Computer Science, School of Engineering