Ray Li

Ray Li is a theoretical computer scientist working on coding theory (classical and quantum), fine-grained complexity, approximation algorithms, and combinatorics. He is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Santa Clara University, following an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley and a Stanford CS PhD (2022). He graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2017 with a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematical Sciences. As a high-school student at Phillips Exeter Academy he represented the United States at the 2013 IMO (silver medal) and was an IOI team candidate in 2012-2013.

Notes8

• Quant employment verification: UNRESOLVED. The only employment-like lead is a 'Trading Intern, Jane Street, 2015' entry associated with the LinkedIn profile linkedin.com/in/rayyli; the LinkedIn page text could not be read and the lead is caller-supplied and unverified. Jane Street is a genuine quantitative trading firm (market-maker), so IF the internship is real it would qualify; but no primary source read in this session states the role, and the CV (cs.stanford.edu/~rayyli/static/Ray_Li_CV.pdf) lists no such internship. Index/aggregator-level only; identity is supported (same LinkedIn carries the matching CMU/Stanford/Phillips Exeter history) but the role itself is not independently confirmed.
• Represented the United States at the 2013 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) as a high-school student and won a silver medal (individual score 25).Jul 2013
• Joined Santa Clara University as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science, where he directs research on classical and quantum error-correcting codes.
• Was an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2023) in EECS at UC Berkeley, hosted by Venkatesan Guruswami, continuing in coding theory.Sep 2022
• Earned a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford in 2022, advised by Mary Wootters and Jacob Fox; thesis 'New combinatorial bounds for error correcting codes'.Jun 2022
• Served as CTO of Expii, Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA, 2014-2015), the math-education startup, while an undergraduate at CMU.Jan 2014
• Held the Knaster-McWilliams Scholarship at Carnegie Mellon, a full-tuition merit scholarship, and graduated with B.S. and M.S. in Mathematical Sciences in 2017.May 2017
• Was an International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) team candidate (Top 8) in both 2012 and 2013, per his own CV.
• Won Putnam 'N1' (ranked in the Top 16) in 2015 while an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon.Dec 2015
• Attended Phillips Exeter Academy (2010-2013) before Carnegie Mellon; the Exeter-era record is the bridge connecting the IMO/IOI mathematics identity to the CMU and Stanford academic record.
• Holds an NSF-funded research award (174332 USD) at Santa Clara University, and directs a student seminar on error-correcting codes.
• Was twice an instructor at the Math Olympiad Program (MOP) in 2017 and 2018, teaching elite high-school competitors, and has set problems for USA IMO team selection and USAJMO.