Colin Shanmo Tang

Colin Shanmo Tang is a mathematics PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University (since 2023), working with Tomasz Tkocz on convex geometry, high-dimensional probability and cryptography. He represented the United States at the 2019 International Mathematical Olympiad, where he earned a gold medal with a perfect 42/42 score and finished joint first among 621 contestants as the U.S. team tied China for top place. He completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics at MIT (4.8 GPA) and was a ranked winner in the Putnam Mathematical Competition. His internships have included quantitative work at Jane Street, mining historical market data for signals, alongside software and data internships at Amazon and a biotech firm.

Notes8

• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED - a supported identity (IMO 2019 gold; CMU mathematics PhD with a personal CMU page) plus an actual internship at a quantitative trading firm. Jane Street is a quantitative market maker and the ARCS Foundation Pittsburgh bio independently states he interned there doing statistical signal-finding in historical market data; the index dates it summer 2022. The role is a past internship, not a current full-time position. No other quantitative-finance employer was found; the Amazon and BiotechSoftwareCo internships were software/data, not finance. No evidence of a bank, hedge fund, asset manager, or crypto/energy trading role beyond Jane Street.Sep 17, 2026
• INTERN (ARCS Foundation Pittsburgh bio, Jan 2024): interned at Jane Street 'using statistical tools to find signals in historical market data' - a quantitative research/data role, not general software.Jan 30, 2024
• EMPLOYER CLASSIFICATION: Jane Street (janestreet.com; legal entity Jane Street Group, LLC) is a quantitative trading firm / ETF market maker; the ARCS-described intern work (mining historical market data for signals) sits in that quantitative-research function.Aug 27, 2026
• INDEX-ONLY (LinkedIn-derived index, not verified against a primary source): lists a current role 'Research Intern at Jane Street' (New York) plus past roles 'Software Development Engineer Intern at Amazon' (Seattle, 2021) and 'Data Researcher at BiotechSoftwareCo.' (2021). The index headline still reads 'Student at Carnegie Mellon University'; the Jane Street entry should not be read as a current full-time role.2026
• Won a gold medal with a perfect 42/42 score at IMO 2019 (Bath, UK), ranked joint 1st of 621 contestants; the U.S. team tied China for first place.Jul 22, 2019
• Graduated from MIT with a degree in mathematics and a 4.8 GPA.Jan 30, 2024
• Began a PhD in the Mathematical Sciences Department at Carnegie Mellon in 2023, advised by Tomasz Tkocz; funded 2023-25 by the ARCS Pittsburgh Scholar Award Endowment in Memory of Jack and Gen Esgar.Jan 30, 2024
• INTERN (ARCS bio, Jan 2024): interned at Amazon in Seattle 'creating an animated test failure logger' - software engineering, not finance.Jan 30, 2024
• Stated research interests are convex geometry, high-dimensional probability, and cryptography; publishes as 'Colin Tang' with advisor Tomasz Tkocz and collaborators at CMU/MIT.2026
• Co-authored 'Adaptive Matrix Sparsification and Applications to Empirical Risk Minimization' (preprint 2025, arXiv:2512.02003) with Yang P. Liu, Richard Peng, Albert Weng and Junzhao Yang - a theoretical CS/optimization line alongside his probability work.2025
• INTERN (ARCS bio, Jan 2024): interned at Biotech 'using sophisticated coding tools to identify drugs with more adverse effects than average' - data/software, not finance.Jan 30, 2024
• Author of 'Simplex slicing: an asymptotically-sharp lower bound', Advances in Mathematics 451 (2024), art. 109784, arXiv:2403.13224.2024