Adam Bouland

Adam Bouland is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, affiliated with the CS Theory Group. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT (advised by Scott Aaronson), followed by postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing (advised by Umesh Vazirani). His research focuses on quantum computing theory, computational complexity, and their connections to physics.

He teaches courses such as Quantum Complexity Theory (CS 359D) and Quantum Computing (CS 259Q), and has advised numerous doctoral, master’s, and postdoctoral researchers. His research group includes Tamara Kohler (postdoc), Shaun Datta, Jack Zhou, Jordan Docter, and Chenyi Zhang (doctoral students), among others.

Bouland’s work bridges quantum algorithms, entanglement theory, and complexity theory, with contributions to quantum supremacy, pseudorandomness, and holographic principles. Recent highlights include studies on BosonSampling hardness, AdS/CFT duality constraints, and efficient quantum compilation.

He has served on program committees for FOCS 2019, QIP 2020, STOC 2023, and ITCS 2025. His research is supported by grants including the NSF CAREER Award for exploring quantum pseudorandomness and complexity frontiers.