NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Hewitt builds and operates low-frequency radio interferometers (HERA, MWA) to detect the redshifted 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization; the sensors are large radio antenna arrays rather than quantum sensors, so this is a borderline astro-instrumentation inclusion.

PREFERRED. Jasanoff's lab develops genetically encoded and nanoparticle/small-molecule MRI sensors (for calcium, dopamine, serotonin, and other neurochemical targets) that convert molecular binding events into brain-wide, noninvasive MRI contrast changes, effectively giving whole-brain 'molecular fMRI' with a growing palette of chemically distinct reporters; recent work includes liposomal nanoprobes actuated by engineered water channels for higher-sensitivity detection.

PREFERRED. Ji is launching the Ji Quantum Lab at MIT to build next-generation scanning-probe and on-chip quantum sensors (millimeter-wave impedance microscopy, 'RFlexiScope') that map nanoscale conductivity, magnetism and collective excitations in strongly correlated and topological quantum materials down to the quantum limit. The lab is explicitly recruiting PhD students, postdocs, and UROPs as of its founding.

PREFERRED. Lloyd is a theorist who derived the fundamental limits of accuracy for quantum sensors, detectors and imagers, and originated 'quantum illumination,' the use of entangled light to enhance target detection in the presence of loss and noise (a precursor to quantum radar/lidar concepts); this theoretical program directly underpins experimental quantum-enhanced sensing and imaging efforts elsewhere in the field.

NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Masui's Synoptic Radio Lab uses the CHIME telescope for hydrogen intensity mapping of large-scale structure and for detecting and localizing fast radio bursts as cosmological probes; work spans theory, data analysis, observation, and digital instrumentation, but the sensing elements are radio-frequency antennas/digital correlators rather than quantum sensors.

PREFERRED. Mavalvala's research (now balanced against her role as Dean of the School of Science) centers on gravitational-wave detection and quantum measurement science, including the original squeezed-light and quantum-noise work at LIGO that she led together with Matthew Evans. Given her administrative role, active new postdoc hiring in her own group is uncertain and should be confirmed directly.

NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Seager's group works on exoplanet atmosphere and interior characterization and the search for atmospheric biosignature gases, including leadership of space-mission concepts (Starshade, ASTERIA, TESS deputy science direction) that require high-contrast, high-resolution spectroscopic instrumentation; per public reporting she is departing MIT for the University of Toronto/CITA effective September 1, 2026, so any postdoc search should confirm her host institution directly.

NON-PREFERRED (astronomy pivot, kept for review). Simcoe designs and builds custom cryogenic infrared spectrographs (FIRE, and the new fiber-fed LLAMAS integral-field spectrograph) for the Magellan telescopes to study the chemistry of galaxies and quasars in the first billion years after the Big Bang; this is an instrumentation-driven astro program rather than a quantum-sensor program per se, so it is included as a borderline pivot.

PREFERRED. Vuletic's group generates large-scale spin squeezing and entanglement in cold and ultracold atomic ensembles to push optical atomic clocks and rotation/field sensors below the standard quantum limit, alongside work on cavity QED, Rydberg tweezer arrays, and nonlinear quantum optics at the single-photon level. Recent work includes cavity-feedback spin squeezing for ytterbium clocks and fault-tolerant neutral-atom quantum sensor/processor arrays with collaborators at Harvard.

PREFERRED. Wong's research centers on quantum and nonlinear optics, particularly high-flux, high-purity polarization-entangled and pure-state single-photon sources (including the Sagnac-interferometer entanglement source later flown on a Chinese quantum-communication satellite) for quantum key distribution and quantum information processing. By his own account he is approaching retirement in the near future, so his continued availability for a postdoc search should be confirmed directly.