Dean Brand
Quantum and neuromorphic computing researcher
Postdoctoral researcher at NITheCS, Stellenbosch, South Africa
I design quantum versions of spiking neurons and the networks built from them, then test what they can learn. Most of my work sits where quantum computing meets neuromorphic and brain-inspired computing.
Research
Four pieces of work that show the shape of it. Each card opens a short account of the paper.
A spiking neuron made of qubits
A leaky integrate-and-fire neuron built from a small quantum circuit, and networks of them that learn to classify handwritten digits.
npj Quantum Information, 2024
Quantising a memristive neuron
Taking the circuit equations of a memristive integrate-and-fire neuron and deriving its quantum mechanical version from first principles.
Physical Review Research, 2026
Neuromorphic kernels for clustering
Comparing kernels from parameterised quantum circuits with kernels from quantum spiking neurons on spectral clustering tasks.
APL Quantum, 2026
Reading EEG with quantum neurons
Classifying brain signals with a quantum neuromorphic model, presented at the first IEEE conference on quantum artificial intelligence.
2025 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Artificial Intelligence, 2025
Selected publications
Five papers, newest first. Titles link to the publisher.
2026
Quantum spectral clustering: comparing parameterized and neuromorphic quantum kernels
Donovan Slabbert, Dean Brand, Francesco Petruccione
APL Quantum
2026
Canonical quantization of a memristive leaky integrate-and-fire neuron circuit
Dean Brand, Domenica Dibenedetto, Francesco Petruccione
Physical Review Research
2025
Quantum neuromorphic classification of EEG brain signals
Dean Brand, Ravi Kumar Jha
2025 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Artificial Intelligence
2024
A quantum leaky integrate-and-fire spiking neuron and network
Dean Brand, Francesco Petruccione
npj Quantum Information
2024
Markovian noise modelling and parameter extraction framework for quantum devices
Dean Brand, Ilya Sinayskiy, Francesco Petruccione
Scientific Reports
All 6 papers, with citation counts, preprints and BibTeX.
Talks and teaching
Three to start with. A title opens the recording, or the full list where a talk has several parts.
- Colloquium
Growing pains: working, thinking and trusting in the age of AI
NITheCS colloquium
21 September 2026, 71 minutes
- Lectures
Introduction to neuromorphic computing
NITheCS mini-school, three lectures
11 to 25 March 2026, 166 minutes
- Micro-school
All 13 talks, with recordings, and the conferences and journals I work for.
A year of code
My GitHub contributions over the last twelve months, private repositories included.
1 435 contributions on GitHub in the last twelve months, private repositories included.
Get in touch
For collaborations, talks or questions about the work, email is best. The card turns over.
Dr
Dean Brand
Postdoctoral researcher
National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences