Chinmay Nirkhe

Biography

I am a faculty member in the Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering and a member of the CS Theory and Quantum CS groups.

My research is at the intersection of complexity theory and quantum computation. In particular, I am interested in proving hardness-of-approximation results and lower bounds on the description complexity of quantum states.

Teaching

Current: Spring 2026 -- CSE 599c: Special Topics: Quantum Complexity Theory

Past courses

Graduate students and postdocs

Group photo from the Winter 2026 quarterly outing to a cocktail bar in Capitol Hill, Seattle. From left to right: Assaf, Shreya, Arjun, Joe, Gilbert (a professor at UW and friend of the lab), Chinmay, and Nick.

I am grateful to work with some wonderful doctoral students:
Assaf Harel, Nicholas Kocurek, Shreya Gupta, and Arjun Aggarwal.

It is my pleasure to co-host Joe Slote as a postdoc.

Select publications

Separating QMA from QCMA with a classical oracle
John Bostanci, Jonas Haferkamp, Chinmay Nirkhe, and Mark Zhandry.
STOC 2026.
[arXiv:2511.09551] [Recorded lecture] [Blog Post by L. Chandrasekaran]
NLTS Hamiltonians from good quantum codes
Anurag Anshu, Nikolas Breuckmann, and Chinmay Nirkhe.
QIP 2023 (Long plenary talk). CCC 2023 (Invited Talk). STOC 2023.
[arXiv:2206.13228] [News Article] [Simons Institute Blog Post] [Proceedings Version]
Quantum search-to-decision and the state synthesis problem
Sandy Irani, Anand Natarajan, Chinmay Nirkhe, Sujit Rao, and Henry Yuen.
QIP 2022. CCC 2022.
[arXiv:2111.02999] [Proceedings Version]
On the complexity and verification of random circuit sampling
Adam Bouland, Bill Fefferman, Chinmay Nirkhe, and Umesh Vazirani.
Nature Physics 2018. ITCS 2019. QIP 2019.
[arXiv:1803.04402] [Journal Version] [News Article]

Education and past employment

IBM Quantum, Cambridge
Research Staff Scientist. 2022 - 2024.
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. Computer Science. 2017 - 2022.
Advisor: Umesh Vazirani | Thesis: Lower bounds on the complexity of quantum proofs
California Institute of Technology
B.S. Mathematics, B.S. Computer Science. 2013 - 2017.

Academic service

Simons Institute Summer 2023 Cluster Co-organizer.
QIP 2023, AQIS 2023, QIP 2024, ITCS 2025, QIP 2026, TQC 2026 Program Committees,.
Quantum Journal Editor.

Resources

University of Washington

General academia advice

Contact information

Prof. Chinmay Nirkhe
Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA 98195-2350

Preferred pronouns: he/him
Email: nirkhe@cs.washington.edu
Office: Gates Center Room 217, 3800 E Stevens Way NE Seattle, WA 98195