About Me

I am Shi Jie Samuel Tan (陈诗杰) and I go by Sam. I am a second-year CS PhD student at the University of Maryland and am currently advised by Andrew Childs and am working with Daniel Gottesman. In 2023, I graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College with high honors in both Computer Science and Physics, and I was fortunate to be advised by Dan Grin and Steven Lindell.

I am broadly interested in quantum error correction and fault tolerance. I utilize concepts and tools in quantum information theory, homological algebra, and graph theory to understand and advance the construction of quantum error correcting codes and fault-tolerant protocols. I also dabble in quantum algorithms and quantum metrology.

My ultimate goal is to build fault-tolerant quantum computers that can withstand the natural decohering forces of our world for the advancement of human knowledge beyond what is achievable by classical computers.

Email: stan97 (at) umd (dot) edu

Related Experiences:

• In Summer 2023, I was a research fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Quantum Computing Summer School (QCSS) under the mentorship of Yiğit Subaşı and Sam Slezak.
• In Summer 2022, I was an undergraduate research fellow in the Caltech’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program under the mentorship of John Preskill and Chris Pattison.
• In Summer 2021, I was an undergraduate research assistant in University of Maryland’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Combinatorics, Algorithms, and AI for Real Problems (CAAR) under the mentorship of Matthew Coudron and Gorjan Alagic.

Publications:

1. Effective Distance of Higher Dimensional HGPs and Weight-Reduced Quantum LDPC Codes
   S. J. S. Tan, L. Stambler.
   arXiv (2024). [pdf][Invited talk at UMD CCSP Seminar]

2. Resilience of the surface code to error bursts
   S. J. S. Tan, C. A. Pattison, M. McEwen, J. Preskill.
   Contributed poster at QEC (2023). [pdf]

3. Optimal Coherent Quantum Phase Estimation via Tapering
   D. Patel^$\dagger$, S. J. S. Tan^$\dagger$ (co-first author), Y. Subaşı, A. T. Sornborger.
   Contributed talk at APS March Meeting (2024). [pdf]

4. Approximating output probabilities of shallow quantum circuits which are geometrically-local in any fixed dimension
   S. Dontha^$\dagger$, S. J. S. Tan^$\dagger$ (co-first author), S. Smith, S. Choi, M. Coudron.
   Contributed talk at TQC (2022). [pdf]

» Pre-quantum

I have previously worked on computational biology with Sara Mathieson, and representation-theoretic probability theory with Elizabeth Milićević.

5. Identity-by-descent (IBD) segment outlier detection in endogamous populations using pedigree cohorts
   S. J. S. Tan, H. T. Dang, S. Keim, M. Bućan, S. Mathieson.
   bioRxiv (2024). [pdf]

6. Random Walks on the Generalized Symmetric Group: Cutoff for the One-sided Transposition Shuffle
   (alphabetical order) Y. Deng, S. J. S. Tan.
   arXiv (2022). [pdf]

7. Comparison of cohort-based identical-by-descent (IBD) segment finding methods for endogamous populations
   H. T. Dang^$\dagger$, S. J. S. Tan^$\dagger$ (co-first author), S. Mathieson.
   Proceedings of ACM-BCB (2022).

8. Ancestral haplotype reconstruction in endogamous populations using identity-by-descent
   K. Finke, M. Kourakos, G. Brown, H. T. Dang, S. J. S. Tan, Y. B. Simons, S. Ramdas, A. A. Schäffer, R. L. Kember, M. Bućan, S. Mathieson.
   PLOS Computational Biology (2021).