Franz Klein

Dr. Franz Klein served as the Founding Director of the National Quantum Laboratory (2021-2025), helping to accelerate the development of practical quantum computing and networking applications and preparing a skilled quantum workforce.

Klein earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Bonn in Germany in 1996. For the next 20 years he was active as a researcher in experimental nuclear physics, including at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and as an instructor for advanced physics, hardware and software development, and scientific computing courses with a focus on multivariate regression, machine learning, and Monte Carlo simulation techniques. Klein then held a three-year IT position with the University of Maryland’s Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) College, where he introduced graduate students and postdocs to high-performance computing (HPC) and taught programming classes in Python and R with a focus on machine learning and natural language processing. In 2020, Klein joined the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) to strengthen the user support for the HPC clusters at UMD and help to launch the Zaratan cluster.

In 2021, Klein became the Founding Director of the QLab. With Norbert Linke taking over the Director position in 2025, Klein now focuses on quantum tech, HPC integration, and quantum workforce training.