Uma Girish

Assistant Professor
Computer Science, University of Toronto
uma (dot) girish (at) utoronto (dot) ca

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. I am interested in quantum algorithms, information and complexity theory and its connections to boolean function analysis and cryptography.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University, hosted by Henry Yuen. I obtained a PhD at Princeton University, advised by Ran Raz. I received my BSc and MSc from Chennai Mathematical Institute.

I am looking to hire PhD students with a strong background in mathematics and theoretical computer science.

Publications

Private Proofs of When and Where

with Greg Gluch, Shafi Goldwasser, Tal Malkin, Leo Orshansky, Henry Yuen.

In CRYPTO 2026. Arxiv.

Magic and communication complexity

with Alex May, Natalie Parham, and Henry Yuen.

In STOC 2026, TQC 2026. Arxiv.

Fourier Spectrum of Noisy Quantum Algorithms

In QIP 2026, STOC 2026. Arxiv.

Forrelation is Extremally Hard

with Rocco Servedio.

In TQC 2025, ITCS 2026. Arxiv

Comparing Classical and Quantum Conditional Disclosure of Secrets

with Alex May, Leo Orshansky and Chris Waddell.

In QCrypt 2026. Arxiv

The Power of Adaptivity in Quantum Query Algorithms

with Makrand Sinha, Avishay Tal and Kewen Wu.

In STOC 2024, QIP 2024. Arxiv

Trade-offs between Entanglement and Communication

with Srinivasan Arunachalam.

In CCC 2023, QIP 2024. Arxiv

One Clean Qubit Suffices for Quantum Communication Advantage

with Srinivasan Arunachalam and Noam Lifshitz.

In TQC 2024. Arxiv

Fourier Growth of Communication Protocols for XOR Functions

with Makrand Sinha, Avishay Tal and Kewen Wu.

In FOCS 2023. Arxiv

Fourier Growth of Parity Decision Trees

with Avishay Tal and Kewen Wu.

In CCC 2021. ECCC, Arxiv.

Lower Bounds for XOR of Forrelations

with Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In APPROX/RANDOM 2021. ECCC, Arxiv.

Quantum versus Randomized Communication Complexity, with Efficient Players

with Ran Raz and Avishay Tal.

In QIP 2020, ITCS 2021. ECCC, Arxiv.

Quantum Logspace Computations are Verifiable

with Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In SOSA 2024. Arxiv

Is Untrusted Randomness Helpful?

with Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In ITCS 2023. Proceedings

Eliminating Intermediate Measurements using Pseudorandom Generators

with Ran Raz.

In ITCS 2022. ECCC, Arxiv.

Quantum Logspace Algorithm for Powering Matrices with Bounded Norm

with Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In QIP 2021, ICALP 2021. ECCC, Arxiv.

Polynomial Bounds On Parallel Repetition For All 3-Player Games With Binary Inputs

with Kunal Mittal, Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

APPROX/RANDOM 2022. ECCC

Parallel Repetition For All 3-Player Games Over Binary Alphabet

with Justin Holmgren, Kunal Mittal, Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In STOC 2022. ECCC, Arxiv.

Parallel Repetition for the GHZ Game: A Simpler Proof

with Justin Holmgren, Kunal Mittal, Ran Raz and Wei Zhan.

In APPROX/RANDOM 2021. ECCC, Arxiv.

Teaching

  • CSC2414H: Quantum Algorithms and Complexity Theory, Fall 2026.
  • CSC374H: Introduction to Quantum Computing, Winter 2027.

Service

I have served on the program committees for TQC 2024, QIP 2025, RANDOM 2025, ICALP 2026 and FOCS 2026.