Research

My work can also be found on arXiv and Google Scholar. Some videos by collaborators.

Survey talk

  • Spin glasses, Algorithms, and Inference
    Cargèse Institute, Aug. 2025. [slides]

Probability

  • Algorithmic threshold for high-dimensional projection pursuit I: general theory
    With Mark Sellke and Nike Sun.
    Preprint 2026. [arXiv] [slides]

  • Overlap distribution of the critical Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model
    With Hang Du.
    Preprint 2026. [arXiv]

  • Fluctuations of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick free energy at critical temperature
    With Hang Du.
    Preprint 2026. [arXiv]

  • Stable algorithms cannot reliably find isolated perceptron solutions
    With Shuyang Gong, Shuangping Li, and Mark Sellke.
    FOCS 2026. [arXiv]

  • Shotgun assembly of random regular graphs
    With Elchanan Mossel, Nike Sun, Claire Zhang, and Leqi Zhou.
    Preprint 2025. [arXiv]

  • On zeros and algorithms for disordered systems: mean-field spin glasses
    With Ferenc Bencs, Daniel Z. Lee, Kuikui Liu, and Guus Regts.
    STOC 2026. [arXiv] [slides]

  • Strong low degree hardness for stable local optima in spin glasses
    With Mark Sellke.
    FOCS 2026. [arXiv] [slides]

  • Weak Poincaré inequalities, simulated annealing, and sampling from spherical spin glasses
    With Sidhanth Mohanty, Amit Rajaraman, and David X. Wu.
    STOC 2025. [arXiv] [slides] [video]

  • Capacity threshold for the Ising perceptron
    FOCS 2024. Best Student Paper. [arXiv] [slides] [video]

  • Sampling from spherical spin glasses in total variation via algorithmic stochastic localization
    With Andrea Montanari and Huy Tuan Pham.
    Preprint 2024. [arXiv] [slides] [video]

  • A constructive proof of the spherical Parisi formula
    With Mark Sellke.
    Preprint 2023. [arXiv] [slides]

  • Strong topological trivialization of multi-species spherical spin glasses
    With Mark Sellke.
    Annals of Probability 54(2) (2026), 1034-1107. [arXiv] [slides]

  • Optimization algorithms for multi-species spherical spin glasses
    With Mark Sellke.
    Journal of Statistical Physics 191 (2024), paper no. 29. [arXiv]

  • Algorithmic threshold for multi-species spherical spin glasses
    With Mark Sellke.
    Preprint 2023. Under revision at Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. [arXiv] [video] [slides]

  • Tight Lipschitz hardness for optimizing mean field spin glasses
    With Mark Sellke.
    Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 78(1) (2025), 60-119. [arXiv] [video] [slides]
    Conference version in FOCS 2022.

  • The algorithmic phase transition of random k-SAT for low degree polynomials
    With Guy Bresler.
    FOCS 2021. [arXiv] [video] [slides]

  • Convergence of maximum bisection ratio of sparse random graphs
    Electronic Communications in Probability 23 (2018), paper no. 51. [arXiv]

Statistical Inference and Learning

  • Threshold for detecting high dimensional geometry in anisotropic random geometric graphs
    With Matthew Brennan and Guy Bresler.
    Random Structures & Algorithms 64(1) (2024), 125-137. [arXiv]

  • When does adaptivity help for quantum state learning?
    With Sitan Chen, Jerry Li, Allen Liu, and Mark Sellke.
    FOCS 2023. [arXiv] [video]
    (Earlier version: Tight bounds for state tomography with incoherent measurements, QIP 2023)

  • Tight bounds for quantum state certification with incoherent measurements
    With Sitan Chen, Jerry Li, and Allen Liu.
    FOCS 2022. [arXiv] [video]

  • De Finetti-style results for Wishart matrices: combinatorial structure and phase transitions
    With Matthew Brennan and Guy Bresler.
    Preprint 2021. [arXiv]

Combinatorics

  • Improved lower bound for Frankl's union-closed sets conjecture
    With Ryan Alweiss and Mark Sellke.
    Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 31(3) (2024), paper no. 35. [arXiv]

  • Cyclic descents for general skew tableaux
    Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A 169 (2020). [arXiv]

  • On the local geometry of graphs in terms of their spectra
    With Mustazee Rahman.
    European Journal of Combinatorics 81 (2019), 378-393. [arXiv]

  • An upper bound on the number of (132,213)-avoiding cyclic permutations
    Discrete Mathematics 342(6) (2019), 1762-1771. [arXiv]

  • Monomization of power ideals and generalized parking functions
    Preprint 2015. (Don't intend to publish) (pdf)

Thesis

  • Statistical and Algorithmic Thresholds in Spin Glasses
    Ph.D. thesis (2025). (pdf)

  • Computational Hardness in Random Optimization Problems from the Overlap Gap Property
    S.M. thesis (2022). Ernst A. Guillemin Award for Best Master's Thesis (2023). (pdf)