Miriam Backens studied Physics and Mathematics at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA (Hons) in Physics and an MMath. They went on to do their PhD research in quantum computing at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.
During a postdoc at the University of Bristol, Miriam became interested in algorithms and computational complexity beyond quantum computation, leading them to return to Oxford as a postdoc in the Theory and Algorithms group. In 2019, they became a Career Development Fellow in Computer Science at Balliol College, before moving to Birmingham as a Lecturer in Computer Science.