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Stuart Wayland

Stuart Wayland

Optimization in synthetic quantum systems.

PhD student, University of California, Santa Cruz
Visiting Affiliate, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, UC Berkeley
Founder, Krv Labs · Berkeley, California

Abstract. My work sits at the intersection of spectral graph theory, quantum Hamiltonian complexity, and randomized algorithms. I focus on classical algorithms for ground-state problems such as Quantum Max-Cut and the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model, and on the spectral theory of random graphs and expanders.

Figure 1. A perfect matching MM in a dense bipartite graph. Placing a singlet on each matched pair gives the product state ⨂(u,v)∈M∣ψ−⟩uv\bigotimes_{(u,v)\in M} |\psi^-\rangle_{uv}.

§1Research

I am pursuing a PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz under Prof. Alexandra Kolla, and am currently living in Berkeley as a visiting affiliate of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

  1. Classical Algorithms for Bipartite Quantum Max-Cut on Dense Expanders

    Stuart Wayland, Zackary Jorquera, and Alexandra Kolla

    arXiv:2610.03670, 2026. arXivpdf

  2. Monogamy of Entanglement Bounds and Improved Approximation Algorithms for Qudit Hamiltonians

    Zackary Jorquera, Alexandra Kolla, Steven Kordonowy, Juspreet Singh Sandhu, and Stuart Wayland

    arXiv:2410.15544, 2024. arXivpdf

All research →

§2Projects

  • Founder

    Krv Labs

    Founder of Krv Labs, where we help clinical trial sites find the patients worth screening. Backed by NVIDIA Inception and Berkeley SkyDeck.

    trials.krv.ai

  • 2022

    Quantifying Gerrymandering with Simulated Annealing

    We apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo with Simulated Annealing to detect gerrymandering, showing it effectively generates representative voting distributions. Results on Texas demonstrate its speed and reliability in identifying bias in districting plans, offering a powerful analytical tool.

Education

PhD in Computer Science
UC Santa Cruz, 2022–present
B.S. Mathematics & Computer Science
UC Santa Barbara, 2018–2022 · minor in music

Curriculum vitæ →

Core stack

Python, Qiskit, Mathematica, and spectral theory.

Beyond the lab

When I’m not in front of a terminal, you can find me surfing, climbing, or making music.