About me

Xiaodi Wu ( in simplified Chinese )

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Fellow at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS). I am also an Amazon Visiting Academic working for AWS Braket. I am a recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER, and AFOSR YIP awards.

Before coming to Maryland, I was an Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Oregon from 2015 to 2017. Before that, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2013 to 2015 (advisor: Aram Harrow, Scott Aaronson). I was also a Simons Research Fellow at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at Berkeley, for the program of Quantum Hamiltonian Complexity in Spring 2014 (advisor: Umesh Vazirani). I also spent two summers at the Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo as a student intern (advisor: John Watrous).

I received my Ph.D. in theoretical computer science in 2013 (advisor: Yaoyun Shi) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I received my B.S. degree in mathematics and physics in 2008 from the Academic Talent Program, Tsinghua University.

Research Interests

My research aims to bridge the gap between the theoretical foundation of quantum computing and the limitation of realistic quantum machines. More specifically, I am working on the foundations of practical quantum applications on realistic quantum machines by investigating computational models that capture the native programmability of quantum devices. I am also building efficient and reliable systems to operate both near-term and long-term quantum devices.

My group recently focuses on the investigation of Hamiltonian-oriented Quantum Algorithm Design and Programming, which treats quantum Hamiltonian evolution as the central object in end-to-end quantum application design.

 

We illustrate that the Hamiltonian-oriented design not only allows more efficient implementation of known quantum algorithms but also inspires novel quantum algorithms, especially in optimization and scientific computing (e.g., Quantum Hamiltonian Descent), which are hard to perceive in the circuit model. We also develop a programming infrastructure (i.e., SimuQ) for easy implementation of Hamiltonian-based quantum applications for domain experts on heterogeneous quantum devices. Please check my Research Overview for details of my existing and ongoing projects.

Shortcuts to GitHub Projects from my group.

Shortcuts to Expository Materials

Group Information

I am actively looking for students and postdocs who are interested in quantum computing.

If you are interested in working with me, please send me an email to let me know your interest.

  • Postdocs:

    • Junyi Liu (2023-)

    • Liyi Li (co-advised with Mike Hicks, 2020 - 2023. Assistant professor at Iowa State University.)

    • Xiong Fan (co-advised with Jonathan Katz, 2020 - 2021. Assistant professor at Rutgers University. )

    • Robert Rand (co-advised with Mike Hicks, 2018-2020. Assistant professor at University of Chicago.)

    • QuICS Hartree Postdoctoral Fellows (who I have closely worked with): Penghui Yao (now Associate Professor at Nanjing University), Xin Wang (now Associate Professor at HKUST(Guangzhou)), Cedric Lin (now at AWS Braket).

  • Current Students:

    • (Ph.D.) Yuxiang Peng, Jiaqi Leng, Jacob Young, Ethan Hickman, Haowei Deng, Yufan Zheng, Yingkang Cao, Yi Lee, Connor Clayton, Joseph Li, Suying Liu, Haohai Shi

News

Research supported by

NSF 

National Science Foundation (NSF)

DOE 

Department of Energy (DOE)

AFOSR 

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)

ARO 

Army Research Office (ARO)

AWS 

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sloan 

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

I am part of the following collaborations:

Contact

Office: IRB 5210

Address:
Computer Science
5109 Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering
8125 Paint Branch Drive
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Email: xwu (at) cs.umd.edu