Scott Aaronson

Position: Faculty

Office: 32-G638

Phone:

E-mail: aaronson@csail.mit.edu

Research Directorate(s): Theory

URL: http://www.scottaaronson.com/

Biography:

Scott Aaronson is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the Theory of Computation and Complexity Theory groups. He holds a PhD in computer science from University of California, Berkeley, a bachelor's degree from Cornell University, and a GED (General Equivalency Diploma) from New York State. Before coming to MIT, Scott worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ from 2004-2005, and at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada from 2005-2007. He received the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award at the 2004 ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing; the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity two years in a row (2003 and 2004); the David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize for his PhD thesis (given for a "truly outstanding piece of research as documented in written form"); and the C. V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Research Award for his paper "Quantum Lower Bound for the Collision Problem."

Scott's 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. Scott's 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. Scott 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.

Awards

• 2004 ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing - Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award 2004
• IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity - Best Student Paper Award 2004
• IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity - Best Student Paper Award 2003
• UC Berkeley - David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize 2005
• UC Berkeley - C.V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Research Award 2002