Welcome!
I am a third year undergraduate at Amherst College studying mathematics and computer science.
My interests lie in the intersection of these two fields, namely the theory behind quantum computing and quantum error correction, as well as computability theory and complexity theory. My other mathematical interests include logic, specifically set theory and descriptive set theory, probability, and measures. My other computer science interests include SAT and SMT solving.
Outside of academics, I play cello in the Amherst Symphony Orchestra and am a member of our women's ultimate frisbee team. I also watch Formula 1 and enjoy reading long-winded fantasy novels.
Previously, I have participated in Amherst College's SURF program and the Fields Summer Undergraduate Research Program. See the DIMACS tab for my work this current summer.
DIMACS Project
Working under Dr. Yipeng Huang in the Computer Science Department at Rutgers University.
Project Description
In 2024, Bayanifar et al. introduced the possibility of pairs of codes existing such that you can take a logical gate from the codespace of one code to the codespace of another.
However, upon further investigation, it appears that there is a paradox involved in the existence of such codes, at least if one assumes they are CSS codes (a subset of more general quantum stabilizer codes).
My project this summer aims to prove or disprove the existence of such codes, and also fully cateogorize the properties required for certain types of transversality between pairs of QECC codes.
Weekly Log
Week 1 - 05/26-05/29
This week, I arrived at Rutgers and met the graduate students in Dr. Huang's lab. I also read several introductory texts on quantum error correcting and stabilizer codes, and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum computing.
Week 2 - 06/01-06/05
This week, I met with Dr. Huang and we discussed possible directions for the project, which is when he brought up Bayanifar et al.'s 2024 paper. We also gave our DIMACS REU initial presentations on Tuesday. I learned about first and second generation quantum repeaters and the quantum teleportation protocol, which causes inequal distribution of X and Z errors between the two stations due to how entangled photons decohere as they travel.
Week 3 - 06/08-06/12
This week, I proved properties of the [[2,1,1]] that Haoyan, one of Dr. Huang's graduate students, had already found experimentally. I also showed that a part of the paradox was trivial, as agreed upon by Dr. Ashikhmin, one of the coauthors of the Bayanifar 2024 paper who Dr. Huang is working with. We clarified what my summer project would be and defined the scope and goals of the project as a classificatoin of transversality of QECC pairs.
Week 4 - 06/15-06/19
This week, I wrote out the standard CX and CZ transversality criterion proofs for when you are dealing with the same code as both the control and the target side. Utilizing the papers by Bayanifar et al., I was also able to extend these discussions to the fully transversal case where you have distinct codes. We properly defined partial transversality and I began investigating the properties linked to that.
Week 5 - 06/22-06/26
This week, I proved that the symmetrical [[2,1,1]] codes are partially CX transversal, which Haoyan had already shown experimentally. I also began the proof that any distinct pair of partially transversal CX codes must have the target be the code with the higher z-distance, and proved the base case.
Week 6 - 06/29-07/03
This week, I expanded upon the proof for more than the base case and we were able to prove the Z-distance inequality for an arbitrary pair of distinct [[n,k,d]] CSS codes.
Week 7 - 07/06-07/10
This week, we rewrote my proof to fit into Haoyan's submission to NetQSA, a workshop at IEEE INCP 2026, and I assisted with editing the paper for typos and reformatting Section 3, where my proof ended up.
Week 8 - 07/13-07/17
This week I presented my work to the other REU participants and began writing my final report.
Week 9 - 07/20-07/24
Prague! As a part of the REU's Prague trip this summer, I attended a series of seminars and lectures about discrete math, graph theory, and combinatorics. I also finished my final report on my research for the summer.
Acknowledgments
This work was carried out while I was a participant in the 2026 DIMACS REU program at Rutgers University, supported by NSF grant CCF-2447342
