Get to Know The Quantum Scientist Finding Beauty in Questions We Cannot Answer
Nidia Obscura Acosta on quantum algorithms, power of a community and staying true to herself in the world of research
For a teenager in Mexico, the expected route to pursue studies and a career was the United States. Finland was not an obvious destination. It was barely a destination at all. Nidia Obscura Acosta’s love for mathematics changed the map.
Being an ardent mathematics student, Nidia was selected for an international science programme connected to the Millennium Technology Prize. The opportunity sounded so unlikely that her father called the embassy to check whether it was real.
It was.
Thirteen years later, Nidia has lived almost her entire adult life in Finland. She moved into theoretical computer science, completed her PhD at Aalto University and now works as a Quantum Algorithms Engineer at QMill, a Finnish company developing quantum algorithms and software for near-term quantum computers.
Her path has taken her from mathematical puzzles to graph algorithms, from classical computing to quantum computing, and from Mexico to Finland’s growing quantum ecosystem. In 2026, her work was recognised with the Research & Innovation Award at the IWWOF Awards.
Contrary to the idea that doing a doctorate follows a lonely path of individual brilliance, Nidia describes her journey as something built through people. From teachers who noticed her, mentors who guided her, friends who kept her going, and communities that supported her, science was less like an isolated pursuit and more like a shared way of understanding the world.
By Varsha Saraogi
The click
“Mathematics was about the moment when something difficult suddenly made sense. The shape of an idea becoming clear,” Nidia explains. “The satisfaction of seeing that, with enough time and attention, even something that looked obscure could become understandable.”
“I like that when something clicks, you can explain it.”
The Math Olympiad competition opened another side of mathematics. It became creative, almost playful. Nidia was drawn especially to combinatorics and graph algorithms, areas that, in her words, feel closer to puzzles than to the image many people have of mathematics as endless formulas or calculations.
Initially, mathematics was something fun, something beautiful, something she enjoyed. But after looking at formulas as something of beauty, the click of mathematics shifted the direction of her life.
Of classical algorithms and quantum questions
While Nidia’s academic path began in mathematics, it moved into theoretical computer science, where she worked with algorithms from a mathematical perspective. During her PhD, she focused on classical algorithms, including graph algorithms. Now, at QMill, she’s moved into quantum algorithms.
The transition was, in many ways, an evolution. The questions were still about computation, structure, efficiency and possibility but now in the strange and fascinating world of quantum computing.
What excites her most are not only technical results, but the deeper questions underneath them. In computational complexity, randomness and quantum computation, she finds questions that are almost philosophical.
“What does it mean for randomness to help computation? Why might a quantum computer be able to solve some problems faster than classical computers? What does computation reveal about the structure of reality itself?” She ponders. For Nidia, these questions are humbling.
The more she learns about quantum mechanics, the more the universe seems both stranger and more interesting. Some principles sound almost like science fiction, she says, until you realise they describe the reality we live in.
That sense of discovery is still what drives her.
Science isn’t solitary
Research is often imagined as one person, one idea, one name on a paper. Nidia sees it differently.
Her PhD lasted around six years and overlapped with the pandemic. During that period, she also lost a colleague. What helped her through was not only intellectual curiosity, but connection. She found meaning in the doctoral community at Aalto University, where she was active in the doctoral researchers association (Aallonhuiput) and later chaired it. Supporting other doctoral researchers, helping people who felt lost, and creating spaces where people could connect became one of the most fulfilling parts of her PhD.
“I loved the research,” she says, “but being part of the doctoral community and helping everyone who felt lost was one of the best parts.”
That experience stayed with her. It reminded her that science does not have to be selfish, even if academic systems sometimes make it feel that way. Research can be rigorous, intellectually demanding and still built on support.
Normalise ordinary as success
Nidia has been used to being one of very few women in mathematics and computer science since her school years in Mexico. In Finland, she noticed the same pattern continuing through academic levels. There may be women at student or doctoral level, but far fewer at professor level.
That absence matters.
Role models are often discussed as a solution, but Nidia points to a more nuanced problem. The women who are visible in research are often presented as extraordinary beyond reach: the genius, the astronaut, the professor with children, awards, leadership roles and an impossible level of achievement.
“Those women are inspiring. But if they are the only role models, they can also make success feel unattainable.” Nidia wants to see more ordinary versions of success too: women researchers who are good at their work, living full lives, building meaningful careers, and not constantly framed as miracles.
“If I only see women who are superstars, I think, if I’m not like that, I won’t make it,” she says. That is one of the pressures women in STEM still face.
Honey, don’t shrink yourself
One of Nidia’s messages to international women entering research and development is simple: do not be ashamed of who you are or how you work.
In scientific environments, she has sometimes felt she should communicate similarly to the men around her, even when it didn’t feel natural. She felt tempted to quiet the parts of herself that asks and gives feedback, collaborates on projects and shut the voice which wants to contribute to the emotional health of a team. But she realised that’s what sets her apart.
“I think it’s very important that we are proud of what we bring to the table,” she says. “Even if it feels scary that you are bringing something different.”
For Nidia, this matters because every time someone hides their difference to fit the existing model, the model remains unchanged. Research cultures become more inclusive when everyone is allowed to contribute as themselves.
Inspiration began at home
“My grandmother is 94. She learnt WhatsApp and is always curious about new technologies. She has cared for siblings, children, grandchildren and other people’s children, but never allowed caregiving to become the only definition of who she is.” Nidia says.
Nidia speaks of her with deep admiration: a woman of intelligence, warmth and strength who, given different opportunities, could have done almost anything.
That image stays with the story. A quantum algorithms engineer in Finland, working on questions at the edge of computation, inspired by a grandmother who still learns and adapts. “To me, it’s a reminder that innovation does not only live in laboratories. Sometimes it is also in the stubborn human refusal to stop growing.”
Nidia’s scientific superpower
When Nidia is asked to name her superpower, she does not choose intelligence, ambition or discipline.
“Empathy,” she says. Nidia notices when something is not working. She wants to know that her team has what it needs. Whether in science, work or community, she feels responsible for helping people move forward together.
In some research environments, care can seem out of place. “It’s one of the most underrated forms of leadership in science.”
Never a dull moment
Nidia describes her journey in one word: discovery. Her life has been shaped by discovery in many forms: discovering mathematics as beauty, Finland as an unexpected home, quantum computing as a new frontier, and community as a force that makes research more human.
Her story begins with a teenager going to a science camp in a country she barely knew. It includes uncertainty, long study years, difficult academic spaces, grief, friendship, mentors, questions, and the steady work of refusing to become smaller in order to belong.
In the end, Nidia’s message is not only for women in research. It is for anyone who has ever felt that to be taken seriously, they must sand down the parts of themselves that make them different.
“Do not sacrifice yourself to fit the room. Bring the questions. Bring the care. Bring the way you see the world. That may be exactly what the research needs.”