Debbie Leung


Contact

wcleung(at)uwaterloo(dot)ca

Office location: QNC 3313 (mostly WFH)

Office phone: 519-888-4567 x33604 (please use email)

Mailing address: Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L3G1, Canada

Current / recent teaching

Winter 2024: QIC 890/CS 867/CO 781/486: Quantum Error Correction & Fault Tolerance

Fall 2023: QIC 820 / CS 867 / CO 781/486: Theory of Quantum Information

Winter 2022: CO 781/CS 867/QIC 890: Quantum Error Correction & Fault Tolerance

Winter 2022: MATH 239: Introduction to Combinatorics

Fall 2020: CO 781/QIC 890: Theory of Quantum Communication

Winter 2019: CO 481/CS 467/PHYS 467: Introduction to Quantum Information Processing

Winter 2018: CO 481/CS 467/PHYS 467: Introduction to Quantum Information Processing

Fall 2016: QIC 890/CO 781: Theory of quantum communication

Fall 2015: MATH 239: Introduction to Combinatorics

Fall 2014: MATH 135: Algebra for Honours Mathematics

Positions for interns, graduate students, and postocs

Suitable candidates are encouraged to contact me.

A response will only be made when a position is available and when there is good match in background and interest.

Current affiliations

Department of Combinatorics and Optimization University Research Chair since 2015, Tier II Canada Research Chair 2005-2015

Institute for Quantum Computing Faculty member since Sept 2005

Perimeter Institute fo Theoretical Physics Associate Member since Jun 2019, affiliate member Dec 2004-May 2019

Background and previous affiliations

Scholar (Mar 2005- May 2019), The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Tolman Postdoctoral Fellow (2003-5), Institute for Quantum Information, Caltech

Postdoctoral Fellow (2002), Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley

Postdoctoral Fellow (2000-2), Physics of Information group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Ph.D. in Physics (2000), Stanford Univeristy
Thesis: "Towards Robust Quantum Computation"
Advisors: Prof. Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Prof. Isaac Chuang

B.S. in Physics/Mathematics (1995), California Institute of Technology
Thesis: ``Effects of thermal conduction in sonoluminescence''
Advisors: Prof. Steven E. Koonin and Dr. Ming-Chung Chu

Research Interest

  • Quantum information processing capacities of abstract or physical resources, e.g., the capacity of communicating quantum information using the dual resources of entanglement and quantum/classical communication channels, the capacity of nonlocal interactions to communicating quantum/classical information, to generate entanglement, and to perform quantum computation. Quantum channel capacities.

  • Entanglement and nonlocality.

  • Cryptographic applications of quantum information, e.g., composability of important quantum protocols, methods for quantum state encryption and authentication and secure key recycling in such protocols, quantum data hiding, quantum key distribution.

  • Fault tolerant quantum computation and error correcting codes.

  • Time travel and various quantum pathologies.
  • Publications

  • List on the arXiv
  • List by google scholar citation
  • Postdocs and students who are working with me right now

  • Postdocs: Hlér Kristjánsson (PI/IQC)
  • Students: Kohdai Kuroiwa (UW CO), Andy Liu (UW CO), Zhaoyi Li (remotely from MIT), Tom Hapke (intern W24 from TUM)
  • People who had work with me as postdocs or students

  • Postdocs: Felix Leditzky, Anurag Anshu, Jamie Sikora, Matt Coudron, Dave Touchette, Penghui Yao, Nengkun Yu, Fang Song, Zhengfeng Ji, Tsuyoshi Ito, Aidan Roy, Motohisa Fukuda, William Matthews

  • Students: Theerapat Tansuwannont, Jesse Wang, Dariusz Lasecki, Matt Hodel, Guiyang Han, Honghao Fu, Michal Kotowski, Laura Mancinska, Yingkai Ouyang, Maris Ozols, Mohammad Derakhshani, Egor Larionov, Christophe Vuillot, Moritz Ernst, Miroslava Sotakova, Abhinav Bahadur, Adam Azarchs, Man-Hong Yung, Panos Aliferis, Graeme Smith, Aram Harrow, Andrew Childs

  • Updated December 09, 2023