Scott Aaronson

[Login to edit Scott Aaronson profile] Position: Associate Professor Office: 32-G638 Phone: +1 (617) 324-8356 Email: aaronson@csail.mit.edu Areas of Study: Theory-Bio Personal Website Last Update: May 26, 2011 Download vCard

Biography

Scott Aaronson is TIBCO Career Development Associate 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.

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; the
learnability of quantum states; quantum proofs and advice; the power
of postselected quantum computing and quantum computing with closed
timelike curves; and linear-optical quantum computing. Scott also
maintains an active interest in many topics in classical theoretical
computer science, including circuit lower bounds, computational
learning theory, and communication complexity.