Scott Aaronson
Associate professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
areas of expertise: computing, quantum computing, foundations of quantum mechanics, theoretical computer science
Scott Aaronson is an associate professor of electrical engineering and somputer science at MIT, and a member of the Theory of Computation and Complexity Theory groups.
He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, a bachelor's degree from Cornell University, and a GED from New York state. Before coming to MIT, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., from 2004-2005, and at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, from 2005-2007.
His research interests center around fundamental limits on what can efficiently be computed in the physical world. This has entailed studying quantum computing, the most powerful model of computation we have based on known physical theory. His work on this subject has included limitations of quantum algorithms in the black-box model; algorithms for quantum spatial search and for simulating restricted classes of quantum circuits; the learnability of quantum states; quantum versus classical proofs and advice; and the power of postselected quantum computing and quantum computing with closed timelike curves. He also maintains an active interest in many topics in classical theoretical computer science, including circuit lower bounds, computational learning theory, communication complexity, Bayesian agreement and inference, and the interplay of complexity and rationality.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu