PQI supports graduate students with research and travel awards, and sponsors two well-attended poster sessions per year.

PQI finally became institutionalized in 2014.“Quantum physics is an area where Pitt not only has a well-established reputation, but where its strength and reputation are growing rapidly with the introduction of many new groups over the course of the last few years,” said PQI advisory committee member Andrew Daley, then assistant professor in Pitt’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

During its inception, PQI staff shared workspace with Dr. Jeremy Levy's research group[15] until dedicated office space was provisioned in the summer of 2015.

The executive board,[19] led by director Dr. Jeremy Levy, includes a dozen faculty from all three institutions, as well as Dr. Andrew Daley, who kept his honorary cofounder seat despite moving his lab to the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, in the fall of 2013.

The PQI logo [20] was designed using the widely used Dirac notation, which makes it instantaneously recognizable by the quantum community.