Bio
Capt Adrian Scheppe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Meteorology at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He graduated and commissioned through the Academy in 2019 where he received a Bachelor of Science in physics with a concentration in Mathematics and a minor in German.
During Capt Scheppe’s first assignment as a PhD student, he pioneered research for predicting and modeling materials for topological quantum computing applications. This work initiated a much broader new program of study at AFIT, which allowed M.S. and PhD students to contribute. Following his PhD program, Adrian was assigned to the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Space Force Base, Florida, where he served as R&D Portfolio Manager for the Seismic, Atmospheric and Space mission sets. During this time, he overhauled a Center-wide research pipeline that spanned a $52M development portfolio and transitioned 34 sensor & software products into operations. In this role, he also supported the development of scientific leaders and cultivated strong research collaboration by advising three graduate projects with AFIT and two undergraduate projects with UC Boulder and Texas A&M. In addition to these efforts, he continued to oversee his quantum research program in collaboration with the AFIT, which launched & concluded three research initiatives involving nanowire qubits/ detectors and superconducting material modeling in support of DoD applied quantum technology.
Education
Doctorate of Philosophy, Applied Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio (2023)
Master of Science, Applied Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio (2021)
Bachelor of Science, Physics, United States Air Force Academy, USAF Academy, Colo. (2019)
Professional Experience
Assistant Professor of Physics, United States Air Force Academy, USAF Academy, Colorado (2026-Current)
R&D Portfolio Manager, Strategic Integration, Air Combat Command, Patrick SFB, Florida (2023-2026)
Honors & Awards
Air and Space Commendation Medal (2026)
Research and Scholarly Interests
Theory, Modeling, & Simulation for Quantum Computing, Sensing, & Optics
Condensed Matter & Solid-State Physics
Mathematical Physics & Developing Fundamental Quantum Theory
Physics Informed Machine Learning Methods
Publications
Scheppe, A.D. and Pak, M.V., 2026. “Finite-Time Braiding Dynamics within Topological Nanowire Qubits”. APL Quantum, Accepted, (Invited Submission)
Scheppe, A.D. and Pak, M.V., 2025. Tight-binding energy-phase calculation for topological Josephson junction nanowire architecture. Nanotechnology, 36(28), p.285001.
Scheppe, A.D. and Pak, M.V., 2024. Perturbing finite temperature multicomponent DFT 1D Kohn–Sham systems: Peierls gap & Kohn anomaly. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 36(7), p.075401.
Scheppe, A.D. and Pak, M.V., 2022. Complete description of fault-tolerant quantum gate operations for topological Majorana qubit systems. Physical Review A, 105(1), p.012415.
Pirozzoli, M.F., Zimmerman, L.A., Korta, M., Scheppe, A.D., Jensen, A.M., Strong, D.M., Plummer, M.K., O’Keefe, D.S. and Chun, F.K., 2022. Calibration, sensitivity analysis, and demonstration of a basic polarimeter for artificial satellite observations. Advances in Space Research, 69(1), pp.581-591.
Miller, J., Gillespie, C., Chesser, J., Scheppe, A., Bryson, T., Dixon, J., Nelson, A., Teslich, N., Lange, A., Elhadj, S. and Reeves, R.V., 2020. Surface modification of organic powders for enhanced rheology via atomic layer deposition. Advanced Powder Technology, 31(6), pp.2521-2529.
Students
Aqua Chung, B.S. (Current) | UC Boulder
In-Prep Paper: “An Operator-Level Correspondence Between Majorana Braiding and Quantized Universal Enveloping Algebra”
Brian Mclaughlin, M.S. (2026) | Air Force Institute of Technology
Thesis: “Axion Electrodynamics in Scaled Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect”
AI/ML Student Working Group, B.S. (2025) | Texas A&M
Software: “Machine Learning Algorithm for Identifying High Impact Research Publications”
Steve McNamara, M.S. (2025) | Air Force Institute of Technology Thesis: “Enhancement of Beta Decay via Photon Interaction: Third Order
Diagrammatic Contributions”
Robert Hall, M.S. (2024) | Air Force Institute of Technology
Thesis: “A Computational Analysis of Voltage-Controlled Majorana Zero Modes In Topological Nanowires”
Presentations
1D Braiding Dynamics for Topological Qubits in the Finite-Time Regime, Theory and simulation of topological devices, APS Global Summit, Denver, CO, (March 2026)
(Conference Talk)
Modeling ABS Energy & Density Character for Topological Josephson Junctions Augmented by Nanowire Architecture, Topological Qubits: Device and Applications, APS Global Summit, Anaheim, CA, (March 2025)
(Conference Talk)
Stability Group Analysis of Multiqubit Geometry, Quantum Information Seminar, Air Force Institute of Technology, Dayton, OH, (January 2025)
(Seminar)
Next Generation Quantum Sensing: Topological Materials for Robust Gravimetry, Classical and Quantum Approaches to Gravity Field Determination, AGU, Washington DC,( December 2024)
(Poster)
Robust Qubits & Topological Junctions, Quantum Information Seminar, Air Force Institute of Technology, Dayton, OH, (November 2024)
(Seminar)
Adding Adversarial Robustness Through Physics Informed Machine Learning, Camelia, NGA, Springfield, VA, (November 2024)
(Poster)
Description of fault tolerant quantum gate operations for topological qubit systems, APS March Meeting, American Physical Society, Las Vegas, NV, (March 2023)
(Poster)
Graphene Study: An Instructive Example of Topology, Quantum Information Seminar, Air Force Institute of Technology/ Air Force Research Lab, Dayton, OH, (February 2023)
(Seminar)
Topological Quantum Gate Operations, Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, (September 2022)
(Poster)
Perturbing Finite Temperature MCDFT KS System, Quantum Information Seminar, Dayton, OH, (August 2022)
(Seminar)
Ingredients of a Topological Quantum Computer, Quantum Information Seminar, Air Force Institute of Technology/ Air Force Research Lab, Dayton, OH, (February 2021)
(Seminar)
Braiding Group for Majorana, Quantum Information Seminar, Air Force Institute of Technology/ Air Force Research Lab, Dayton, OH, (November 2020)
(Seminar)