QUBIC CI Professor Marta Garrido brings expertise and infrastructure to enable next-generation quantum-enabled brain measurement.

The appointment of Professor Marta Garrido to QUBIC in 2025 marks a significant step in expanding the Centre’s multidisciplinary capability and strengthening its leadership in quantum-enabled biotechnology.

Her expertise in neuroscience and computational modelling brings new capability at the intersection of physics, engineering and biological research, supporting QUBIC’s future work in quantum-enabled human brain imaging.

Professor Garrido’s research combines brain imaging techniques and computational modelling to understand how the brain learns from experience and makes decisions in both typical individuals and people with psychiatric disorders. Her work uses methods including magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study brain activity and neural circuitry. This research focuses on understanding the biological basis of brain function and psychiatric conditions, including disrupted predictive processes and brain circuitry.

Professor Garrido significantly expands QUBIC’s capability in magnetoencephalography.

She brings more than twenty years of experience in MEG data acquisition, analysis and brain connectivity modelling. In 2024, she established the first purpose-built whole- head, room-temperature MEG facility in the southern hemisphere at the University of Melbourne through an ARC LIEF grant. The facility uses wearable optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) – 50 highly sensitive quantum magnetic field detectors – to measure extremely weak magnetic signals generated by brain activity. These sensors can be positioned flexibly on the head and allow recordings during more ‘natural’ experimental conditions where people can freely move.

This facility provides infrastructure to support QUBIC’s research in quantum-enabled neural imaging. In 2025, the University of Queensland also committed $1.6M to establish an R&D facility for quantum MEG. These two facilities combined means QUBIC has the southern hemisphere’s only room-temperature MEG facilities. Professor Garrido’s work contributes to informing the development of quantum sensors for MEG, benchmarking emerging sensing technologies including rubidium, diamond and optomechanical systems, and validating new approaches to non-invasive brain measurement. Her expertise in MEG data acquisition and analysis supports the development and testing of sensing technologies under development within QUBIC and contributes to research on brain connectivity and neural activity.

Her appointment also supports collaboration across QUBIC nodes. Project funding associated with this work enables the appointment of a postdoctoral research fellow in whole-brain MEG and will support MEG research at the University of Melbourne, University of Wollongong and The University of Queensland. Professor Garrido also brings experience in mentoring researchers, supporting training and development programs, established industry connections, and from 2026 will lead the QUBIC’s Outreach & Engagement portfolio.

Professor Garrido’s appointment strengthens QUBIC’s capacity to integrate quantum sensing technologies with biological and clinical research, expanding the Centre’s multidisciplinary capability and supporting collaboration across its research nodes. By contributing new infrastructure, technical expertise and research networks, her appointment enhances QUBIC’s ability to develop and apply quantum technologies for brain measurement and builds the foundation for future research and partnerships.

An extract from the 2025 QUBIC Annual Report. Read the full report here.

• visit the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Laboratory
• visit the Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit (MBCIU)