Allen Liu

Allen Liu is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NYU Courant, working in algorithms and machine learning theory with a current focus on foundations of machine learning and language models. He completed his PhD in EECS at MIT advised by Ankur Moitra, was a Miller postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley in fall 2025, and earned his B.Sc. in mathematics from MIT in 2020. He won gold medals at the IMO in 2014, 2015 and 2016 for the United States, with a perfect score in 2016, and received the 2025 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation 'Learning Theoretic Foundations for Understanding Quantum Systems'.

Notes4

• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Allen Liu's own CV lists two quantitative-finance internships: 'Trading Intern, Jane Street Capital, NY, Summer 2017' and 'Quantitative Research Intern, D. E. Shaw & Co., NY, Summer 2018'. Both Jane Street Capital and The D. E. Shaw Group are quantitative trading/hedge-fund firms, so each role is an actual internship at a quant-finance employer. Identity is supported by the CV being hosted on his personal site aliu42.github.io, which links his MIT/NYU academic record and IMO awards. The Citadel GQS PhD Fellowship (2024) is a scholarship, not employment, and is excluded.2025
• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Allen Liu's own CV lists two quantitative-finance internships: 'Trading Intern, Jane Street Capital, NY, Summer 2017' and 'Quantitative Research Intern, D. E. Shaw & Co., NY, Summer 2018'. Both Jane Street Capital and The D. E. Shaw Group are quantitative trading/hedge-fund firms, so each is an actual internship at a quant-finance employer. Identity is supported by the CV being hosted on his personal site aliu42.github.io, which links his MIT/NYU academic record and IMO awards. The Citadel GQS PhD Fellowship (2024) is a scholarship, not employment, and is excluded.2025
• Awarded the 2025 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his MIT dissertation 'Learning Theoretic Foundations for Understanding Quantum Systems', announced June 2026 by NYU Courant - the field's top dissertation prize, arriving as he starts his faculty role.Jun 10, 2026
• Serves as Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NYU Courant from January 2026, after a Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley in fall 2025, moving from pure theory to a faculty post.Jan 2026
• Serves as Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NYU Courant from January 2026, after a Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley in fall 2025.Jan 2026
• Completed PhD in Computer Science at MIT in 2025, advised by Ankur Moitra, with a prior S.M. in CS (2022) and B.Sc. in Mathematics (2020) from MIT.2025
• Won a gold medal at the IMO in 2014, 2015 and 2016 representing the United States, including a perfect 42/42 score and rank 1 in 2016.Jul 2016
• Awarded the Citadel GQS PhD Fellowship in 2024 - a scholarship/grant, not a role at Citadel, and distinct from any employment.2024
• Held research internships at Google Research NY (summers 2019 and 2020) and Microsoft Research (summers 2021 and 2022), alongside the earlier quant internships - a research-track path after the finance internships.2022
• Held research internships at Google Research NY (summers 2019 and 2020) and Microsoft Research (summers 2021 and 2022), a research-track path that followed the earlier quant internships.2022
• Won the Quantum Information Processing (QIP) Best Student Paper award in 2024 for work on learning quantum Hamiltonians.2024
• Named a 2021 Hertz Fellow; the foundation profile notes he is a Rochester, New York native and an expert alpine skier.2021