Scott Aaronson

Timeline

1. 2000–2004

   Cornell and a Berkeley PhD

   At Cornell, he writes control algorithms for a RoboCup robot-soccer team and earns a BSc in computer science in 2000. He starts his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in AI, then switches to quantum computing and completes the degree under Umesh Vazirani in 2004.

2. 2007–2016

   MIT and a Waterman Award

   After postdoctoral work at the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Waterloo, he joins the MIT faculty in 2007 and teaches in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for nine years. In 2012, the National Science Foundation names him one of two recipients of its Alan T. Waterman Award, with a $1 million grant. By 2012, he has also founded the Complexity Zoo wiki and writes the blog Shtetl-Optimized.

3. November 2010

   The complexity of linear optics

   In November 2010, he and his student Alex Arkhipov post The Computational Complexity of Linear Optics, which gives evidence that classical computers cannot efficiently simulate identical photons sent through a linear-optical network. They describe an optical experiment that could use quantum mechanics to carry out a calculation infeasible for conventional computers.

4. 2013

   Quantum Computing Since Democritus

   Cambridge University Press publishes Quantum Computing Since Democritus in March 2013, a book based on his graduate survey course of the same name. It runs from Democritus through logic, computability, complexity, quantum computing and cryptography, with discussions of time travel and the anthropic principle.

5. 2016–2018

   Quantum Information Center at UT Austin

   In summer 2016, he moves from MIT to the University of Texas at Austin as David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Sciences and founding director of its new Quantum Information Center. He receives a Simons Investigator Award in 2017 and the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize in Physics in 2018.

6. 2020

   The ACM Prize in Computing

   He receives the 2020 ACM Prize in Computing, announced in April 2021, for contributions to quantum computing. ACM credits him with helping develop the concept of quantum supremacy and with many of the theoretical foundations of quantum supremacy experiments.

7. 2022–2024

   AI safety at OpenAI

   In summer 2022, he announces a leave from UT Austin to work at OpenAI on the theoretical foundations of AI safety and alignment, and he stays for the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 academic years. As a guest researcher, he reveals in a UT Austin lecture reported in December 2022 that OpenAI is developing a tool to statistically watermark text from systems such as ChatGPT.

8. 2026

   National Academy of Sciences election

   In April 2026, he is elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of 120 members inducted at its 163rd Annual Meeting. He holds the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at UT Austin, directs its Quantum Information Center, and teaches a course on AI alignment theory in fall 2026.