Scott Aaronson

I'm Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. My research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

For the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years, I'm on leave to work at OpenAI on the theoretical foundations of AI safety.

Information for Prospective PhD Students: At UT Austin, admissions are strictly through the yearly application process, not through emailing individual faculty members like me. I'm always on the lookout for great students, although funding is extremely tight this year. If you apply for a PhD in CS and specify that you want to work with me, I'll be sure to see your application. (I can also supervise or co-supervise physics students, but in that case I play no role in admissions.) Admissions are extremely competitive, so I urge you to apply broadly to maximize your chances.

Book

Research

Miscellaneous

Lecture Notes

Courses

Students

  • Andrew Drucker: PhD, graduated MIT August 2012, now a professor at the University of Chicago
  • Michael Forbes: graduated MIT April 2014, now a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (co-advised with Amir Shpilka)
  • Alex Arkhipov: PhD, graduated MIT June 2017, now in industry
  • Adam Bouland: PhD, graduated MIT June 2017, now a professor at Stanford
  • Shalev Ben-David: PhD, graduated MIT June 2017, now a professor at the University of Waterloo
  • Luke Schaeffer: graduated MIT August 2019, now a postdoc at the University of Waterloo
  • Saeed Mehraban: graduated MIT June 2019, now a professor at Tufts (co-advised with Aram Harrow)
  • Daniel Grier: graduated MIT August 2019, now a professor at UC San Diego
  • Patrick Rall: graduated UT Austin November 2021, now at IBM Yorktown Heights
  • Daniel Liang: graduated UT Austin May 2023, now a postdoc at Rice
  • William Kretschmer: graduated UT Austin May 2023, now a postdoc at Berkeley
  • Jiahui Liu: graduated UT Austin May 2023, now a postdoc at MIT
  • Justin Yirka: PhD, in progress
  • Sabee Grewal: PhD, in progress
  • Jiawei Li: PhD, in progress

Postdocs

Contact

    The best way to reach me is via email:
    bqpqpoly at gmail dot com
    aaronson at cs dot utexas dot edu
    (Some emails get caught in my spam filter, in which case you might need to resend)

    Office: GDC (Gates Dell Complex) 4.422

    Administrative assistant phone: (512)-471-9595