Stephen Jordan was an Adjunct Associate Professor in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) and a physicist in the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Jordan's research focused on quantum information, especially algorithms, complexity and post-quantum cryptography. This included simulating chemistry and particle physics on quantum computers, applying methods from physics and topology to computer science, and investigating alternative models of quantum computation, such as the adiabatic, permutational, and one-clean-qubit models. He received his doctoral degree in physics from MIT in 2008. After QuICS, he continued on as a Senior Researcher for the Quantum Architectures and Computation (QuARC) group at Microsoft Research in Redmond Washington.