Leonard J. Y. Schulman (born September 14, 1963) is professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

in the Computing and Mathematical Sciences Department at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

. He is known for work on

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for per ...

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

coding theory Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and computer data storage, data sto ...

, and

quantum computation A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using specialized hardware. C ...

Personal biography

Schulman is the son of theoretical physicist

Lawrence Schulman Lawrence S. Schulman (born 1941) is an American-Israeli physicist known for his work on path integrals, quantum measurement theory and statistical mechanics. He introduced topology into path integrals on multiply connected spaces and has contri ...

Academic biography

Schulman studied at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, where he completed a BS degree in mathematics in 1988 and a PhD degree in applied mathematics in 1992. He was a faculty member in the College of Computing at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

from 1995 to 2000 before joining the faculty of the

. From 2003-2017, he served as the director of the Center for Mathematics of Information at Caltech. He also participates in the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. In 2017-2018, he was a EURIAS Senior Fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Research

Schulman's research centers broadly around algorithms and information. He has made notable contributions to varied areas within this space including clustering, derandomization, quantum information theory, and coding theory. In coding theory he proved the Interactive Coding Theorem (a generalization of the Shannon Coding Theorem.) In clustering, his work on quantifying the effectiveness of Lloyd-type methods for the

k-means ''k''-means clustering is a method of vector quantization, originally from signal processing, that aims to partition of a set, partition ''n'' observations into ''k'' clusters in which each observation belongs to the cluster (statistics), cluste ...

problem, was named a Computing Reviews "Notable Paper" in 2012. In quantum computation, he is known for his work on the non-abelian hidden subgroup problem, and for his work on noise thresholds for ensemble quantum computing.

Awards and honors

Schulman received the MIT Bucsela Prize in 1988, an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1992 and an NSF CAREER award in 1999. His work received the IEEE S.A. Schelkunoff Prize in 2005. Schulman was also recognized for the ACM Notable Paper in 2012. In 2022 he was awarded the FOCS Test of Time Award for his work on error correction in the setting of interactive communication. He was the editor-in-chief of the

SIAM Journal on Computing The ''SIAM Journal on Computing'' is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Although its official ISO abbreviation i ...

for two terms (2013-2018.) He was elected as a Fellow of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

, in the 2022 Class of

SIAM Fellow The SIAM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognizes outstanding members of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The goal of the program is to: *honor SIAM members who are recognized by their peers as distinguishe ...

s, "for seminal contributions to coding theory, quantum computing and matrix analysis, and outstanding service".

References

External links

Leonard Schulman professional home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schulman, Leonard 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians California Institute of Technology faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Living people American theoretical computer scientists 1963 births Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics