Quantum computer cryostat glowing in darkness

Quantum & Computational Physics Engineering

Christina
Holt

I turn quantum physics into working software: holographic spacetime simulators, quantum-sensor navigation for GPS-denied systems, symplectic neural networks and post-quantum security tools.

Christina Holt
Paradise Valley, Arizona

About

First principles, applied.

As Principal Software Engineer at Ryker Capital, I architect distributed systems, define API boundaries and orchestrate resilient microservices with Kubernetes to handle heavy, mission-critical data throughput.

My work bridges high-performance software engineering with applied computational physics, deterministic AI architectures and post-quantum infrastructure. My technical foundation rests on first-principles physical modeling and mathematical rigor.

With an M.S. in Cyber Forensics & Counterterrorism, I approach infrastructure with a defensive, adversarial mindset. I'm also a native speaker of Italian and French.

Selected projects

Quantum engineering work

Entangled Spacetime — AdS/CFT Tensor Network Simulator
Quantum gravity · 3D simulation

Entangled Spacetime — AdS/CFT Tensor Network Simulator

A high-performance 3D web simulation of AdS/CFT duality, ER=EPR entanglement and general relativity, built with Three.js and custom numerical pipelines. Real-time null-geodesic ray tracing, live metric-tensor telemetry, Ryu–Takayanagi minimal surfaces and topological quantum error correction.

Gravity-Aided Navigation — RelativisticQ-PNT Demonstrator
Quantum sensing · GPS-denied PNT

Gravity-Aided Navigation — RelativisticQ-PNT Demonstrator

Can an environmental gravity reference constrain the drift of an unaided inertial system? The simulator combines strapdown inertial propagation, synthetic gravity-gradient mapping from atom-interferometer-style sensors, noisy measurements and a nonlinear EKF, with a quantitative INS-only vs. gravity-aided comparison.

Symplectic Hamiltonian PINN Microservice
Scientific ML · Hamiltonian dynamics

Symplectic Hamiltonian PINN Microservice

A containerized FastAPI + PyTorch service that learns the Hamiltonian rather than the next state, solving non-linear dynamical systems faster than traditional integrators while preserving phase-space volume. Benchmarked on a chaotic Duffing oscillator with |ΔH/H₀| ≈ 10⁻⁴ and no long-term energy drift; scales on Kubernetes.

PQC Sentinel — Post-Quantum Readiness Auditor
Post-quantum cryptography

PQC Sentinel — Post-Quantum Readiness Auditor

A domain-level audit platform and API that negotiates TLS 1.3 hybrid ClientHellos using ML-KEM-768 + X25519, detects emerging post-quantum support in line with NIST FIPS 203, and flags Harvest-Now-Decrypt-Later exposure across internet-facing services.

Research areas

Areas of work

01

GPS-Denied Navigation & Geophysics

Coupling strapdown inertial dead reckoning with gravimetric anomaly field matching through nonlinear Extended Kalman Filtering, so platforms can navigate when satellite positioning is unavailable.

INSGravity-aided navEKFqpnt.us
02

Scientific Machine Learning

Containerized services running symplectic Physics-Informed and Hamiltonian Neural Networks that preserve phase-space volume and eliminate secular energy drift in long simulations.

PINNsHNNsSymplectic integration
03

Quantum Simulation & Compilation

State-vector evolution, IBM Heavy-Hex graph transpilation routing, and Variational Quantum Eigensolver molecular solvers.

VQEHeavy-HexTranspilationquantumcore.cloud
04

Secure, Zero-Trust Infrastructure

An adversarial mindset applied to system design: zero-trust guardrails, cyber threat intelligence and cryptographic verification built directly into mission-critical systems.

Zero trustCTIPost-quantum

Experience

Where I've worked

  1. Jan 2024 — Present
    New South Wales, Australia

    Principal Software Engineer

    Ryker Capital
    • —Lead architecture for complex distributed systems: service boundaries, API contracts, integration patterns and long-term technical direction.
    • —Set engineering standards for scalability, reliability, observability, testing and secure software design.
    • —Direct machine learning applications for security use cases, including large language model integration and production deployment.
    • —Mentor senior engineers through architecture reviews and design critiques; partner with product and security leadership on technical roadmaps.
  2. Apr 2023 — Dec 2025
    Cave Creek, Arizona

    Clinical Case Manager

    Buena Vista Health & Recovery Centers

  3. May 2020 — Apr 2023
    Aerospace & defense

    Software Engineer

    AES Aerospace Embedded Solutions GmbH

    • —Designed, developed, tested and debugged system software for aerospace and defense applications.
    • —Improved efficiency, stability, scalability and I/O performance in performance-sensitive environments.
    • —Integrated and validated new designs across software and hardware interfaces; led root-cause analysis in high-reliability systems.

Education

  • M.S., Cyber/Computer Forensics & Counterterrorism
    University of Arizona
    2014 — 2016
  • B.S., Anthropology
    Arizona State University
    2003 — 2007
  • B.S., Pre-Medical Studies
    Lipscomb University
    1996 — 1999

Certifications

  • Condensed Matter Physics — University of Colorado Boulder (2026)
  • Biomedical Sensor Engineering — Indian Institute of Science (2026)
  • Materials Science for Advanced Technological Applications
  • Generative AI Engineering
  • Google Cybersecurity Specialization
  • IBM & ISC2 Cybersecurity Specialist
  • Meta Front-End Developer

Top skills

Quantum Compilation & TranspilationVariational Quantum EigensolverQuantum Error CorrectionQuantum Sensor Data FusionSpacetime DynamicsComputational PhysicsGuidance, Navigation & ControlMEMSKubernetes

Languages

Italian · French (native / bilingual)