Aleks Kissinger

Postdoc, Quantum Group. aleks@cs.ru.nl | contact info

My research is in quantum information, automated reasoning, category theory, graphical calculi, and graph rewriting. A major focus of my work is the use of graphical languages to better understand (physical, mathematical, logical, ...) processes.

Before I was in Nijmegen, I was a postdoc in the Quantum Group in the Oxford Computer Science Department and a Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College. I completed my PhD in Oxford in 2012. My thesis was entitled Pictures of Processes: Automated Graph Rewriting for Monoidal Categories and Applications to Quantum Computing.

Research & Updates

• Find my talks and papers here.

• I'm writing a textbook:

  

  Picturing Quantum Processes: A First Course in Quantum Theory and Diagrammatic Reasoning. Bob Coecke and Aleks Kissinger, Cambridge University Press

  ...which teaches quantum theory from first principles entirely within this diagrammatic paradigm. In draft form, it has been the basis of a masters-level Quantum Computing course running in Oxford for 3 years. If you are interested in running a similar course, get in touch with me.

  To get some flavour of the book, you can check out this paper, which gives approximately the first 6 chapters in a somewhat condensed package.

• I am the lead developer on Quantomatic, a tool for (semi)automated reasoning with diagrammatic languages.
• I maintain TikZiT, a GUI tool for making diagrams in TikZ.

Students

• Current PhD students: Vladimir Zamdzhiev and David Quick.
• Former PhD students: Alex Merry

Teaching

I am teaching two courses this year: Languages and Automata and Matrixrekenen.

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Updated 4 Nov, 2015.