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Alexander Poremba

I am a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, hosted by both Vinod Vaikuntanathan and Peter Shor. I am affiliated with the Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Department of Mathematics. I received my PhD from Caltech, where I was fortunate to have been advised by Thomas Vidick.

Contact: poremba (at) mit (dot) edu
Office: Stata Center, 32-G678

Research

My research focuses on theoretical aspects of quantum computation and its implications for both physics and cryptography. Recently, I've been interested in quantum pseudorandomness, the mathematics of black-hole information scrambling, the post-quantum security of SHA-3, and whether even small amounts of noise can affect our ability to learn from quantum experiments.

Below is an overview of my research interests.

Quantum Pseudorandomness:
Can even low-complexity quantum processes seem highly complex?
PFC









Learning in a Noisy Quantum World:
How can noise affect our ability to learn from quantum experiments?
noise










Black Holes and Information Scrambling:
How does information from infalling particles get scrambled inside of a black hole?

black-hole










Lattice-Based Cryptography:
Can we design new cryptographic protocols assuming the hardness of lattice problems?

lattice-based cryptography







Post-Quantum Security of SHA-3:
How secure is the current international hash function standard in a quantum world?

SHA-3






Curriculum Vitae

PhD, Computer Science, California Institute of Technology (2018 - 2023)
MSc, Physics, University of Heidelberg (2015 - 2017)
BSc, Mathematics, University of Heidelberg (2011 - 2015)

I was a long-term visitor at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley, to attend the 2020 spring program The Quantum Wave in Computing. In the summer of 2018, I was awarded a Quantum Computing Summer Fellowship to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. Before I came to Caltech, I was also a long-term visitor at the University of Copenhagen, where I was fortunate to work with Gorjan Alagic at the Centre for the Mathematics of Quantum Theory.

A detailed academic CV is available upon request.

Publications

For a more up-to-date list, visit my Google Scholar page.

  • On Quantum Chosen-Ciphertext Attacks and Learning with Errors (2018)
    Gorjan Alagic, Stacey Jeffery, Maris Ozols and Alexander Poremba.
    Published in Cryptography 4 (1), 10 (2020): Special Issue on Quantum Cryptography and Cyber Security.
    Contributed talk at QCrypt 2018, Shanghai, China, and TQC 2019 at the University of Maryland, USA. [Talk]
  • Quantum-Assisted Quantum Compiling (2018)
    Sumeet Khatri, Ryan LaRose, Alexander Poremba, Lukasz Cincio, Andrew T. Sornborger and Patrick J. Coles
    Published in Quantum 3, 140 (2019).

Teaching Assistantships

- Caltech: CS 152: Introduction to Cryptography (Instructor: Prof. Thomas Vidick)
- Caltech: CS 101-3 Quantum Algorithms and Programming (Instructor: Dr. Alexandru Gheorgiu).
- Caltech: CS/PH 120 Quantum Cryptography (Instructor: Prof. Thomas Vidick).
- University of Heidelberg: Introduction to Computer Science (Instructor: Prof. Katja Mombaur)
- University of Heidelberg: Real Analysis II (Instructor: Prof. Hans Knüpfer)
- University of Heidelberg: Real Analysis I (Instructor: Prof. Winfried Kohnen)

Academic Services

Program committee: TQC 2024, QCRYPT 2024, YQIS 2021
Reviewer: STOC, FOCS, QIP, Quantum, Physical Review A, Crypto, Eurocrypt, SODA, TQC, QCrypt, TCC, PQCRYPTO.