work

Stevens officially started the Fall 2026 semester this week! It's exciting to see the campus come back to life, and all the faculty more consistently around. On top of that, Stevens launch the School of Computing this semester! This means there's still a lot of reshuffling and logistics friction. So far, I've been trying to lay low until the staff and new leadership has time to organize all their own systems. Of course, I moved labs and need to hire researchers, etc., so I feel a little bad that I have to reach out and ask for some things.

The new semester also means a new class! I taught the first class of CS 810: Quantum Information Science this Tuesday. The first half I think went well, but the second half definitely fell flat. I tried to motivate/derive the core unitary evolution of quantum states from an argument that it is a natural generalization of standard probability theory. This was how I was first introduced to it, and I think it's a really compelling and intuitive formulation that avoids anything like physics postulates. Unfortunately, the slides I prepared and the way I went through the logic didn't really come through. Still, I learned something for the next time I attempt it, and I think it'll be ok, since it's not essential to the content of the course. Hopefully, next week goes better when we start talking about interference and circuits!

I'm also of course continuing to do research. Most of that is focused on pushing for Eurocrypt, revising manuscripts, and setting up a group meeting. Nothing super exciting just yet, but more information may be coming soon!

non-work

I feel like I've gotten into a bit of a routine outside of work. I knocked out a lot of personal items this week, like setting up doctors appointments, fixing things around the house, etc. Sadly, my Bullshit Jobs loan expired, so I'm back on the waiting list and have just been listening to music on my runs. I also have been putting off starting the next Dungeon Crawler Carl book, but I really want to read it. I might start it this weekend, since it's long and I don't really have other major plans.

As far as games go, my friends and I beat Big Walk last weekend! Such a well designed and fun game to play. It was the perfect blend of chill, interactive, and open for us. Since then though, we have stalled a bit. I still am working through Slay the Spire 2 myself, but we mostly have just been playing Rocket League when we get the chance. We decided yesterday to buy a new game to play. Right now I think it's between Palworld and Enshrouded since they're on sale. I also bought Echos of the Eye DLC while it was on sale, so I'll probably try that out soon too.

questions

• How do you communicate anonymously through classical channels if you want to send quantum information?
  • Classically, we have ok solutions, but to teleport a qubit you need entanglement, and it seems like the monogamy of entanglement would make this tricky
• Does a random-index oblivious RAM lower bound exist?
  • I've re-discovered RORAM as a primitive and forgot that the only lower bounds which apply to it are the original GO96 bounds
  • Are there information-theoretic analogs of these like LN18 showed for regular ORAM?
• How much more useful is quantum preprocessing than classical preprocessing?
  • Are there problems/cryptography where there exist large separations between the two?
  • This is really open-ended, but it's something I've had on my mind for a little bit.

Thanks for reading to the end! Here's a picture of Timmy all bundled up.