Henry Yuen

Henry Yuen is a theoretical computer scientist whose goal is to understand the fundamental principles of computation and communication in a universe governed by quantum physics (such as ours). These days, he studies questions at the interface of quantum information theory, computational complexity theory, and cryptography.

In his research, Yuen utilizes ideas and tools from a variety of disciplines, ranging from complexity theory to quantum physics to information theory. He has made a number of contributions to the theory of quantum multiprover interactive proofs, including the discovery that such interactive proofs can verify solutions to uncomputable problems. Yuen also works on quantum cryptography; some of his contributions include designing protocols for infinite randomness expansion using untrusted quantum hardware.

Yuen received a BA in mathematics from the University of Southern California in 2010, and received his PhD in computer science at MIT in 2016. He was an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Mathematics departments at the University of Toronto between 2018 - 2020, and joined the faculty of Columbia in 2021.