Seyoon Ragavan

Seyoon Ragavan is a PhD student in computer science at MIT advised by Vinod Vaikuntanathan, working on quantum algorithms, coding theory and cryptography. He previously worked as a quantitative research analyst at Citadel Securities (Aug 2021-Jan 2023) after a quantitative research analyst internship there in Summer 2020, and completed a mathematics degree at Princeton University in 2021. He represented Australia at the International Mathematical Olympiad four times (2013-2016), winning one gold and three bronze medals.

Notes7

• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Seyoon Ragavan's own CV and personal website both state he worked as a Quantitative Research Analyst at Citadel Securities from August 2021 to January 2023, and as a Quantitative Research Analyst Intern there in Summer 2020. Citadel Securities (citadelsecurities.com) is a market-maker / broker-dealer in financial services, i.e. a genuine quantitative trading firm, not merely a name containing 'quant'. Identity is supported by three independent primary/maintained sources that cross-link: the MIT-hosted personal site, the subject-authored CV, and the LinkedIn profile - all giving the same Princeton (2017-2021) and MIT (2023-) education timeline. This is an actual past role plus internship, so the criterion for CONFIRMED is met.2025
• Career timeline (from CV EXPERIENCE section): Google Quantum AI, Student Researcher - upcoming Summer 2026; Citadel Securities, Quantitative Research Analyst - Aug 2021 to Jan 2023; Citadel Securities, Quantitative Research Analyst Intern - Summer 2020; Princeton University, Research Intern in Theoretical Machine Learning - Summer 2019; Afari (student-founded social media startup), Software Engineering Intern - Summer 2018. The Citadel gap (Jan 2023 to Sep 2023) is explained by the start of MIT graduate study, not an unlisted employer.2025
• After two years as a full-time quant research analyst at Citadel Securities he left to begin an MIT PhD (S.M. Sep 2023, PhD candidate Jun 2024); his public output since is almost entirely cryptography/quantum-algorithms research, so his current identity is academic rather than finance.2025
• Best Paper Award at CRYPTO 2024 for 'Space-Efficient and Noise-Robust Quantum Factoring' (with Vinod Vaikuntanathan), later invited/merged into the Journal of Cryptology.Jul 30, 2024
• Advised at MIT by Vinod Vaikuntanathan; research focus is quantum algorithms, coding theory, and cryptography, with emphasis on using algebra/number theory to improve algorithm and protocol efficiency.2025
• Public contact listed on his own CV/personal site: [contact omitted] (MIT institutional address).2025
• Represented Australia at the IMO four consecutive years (2013-2016) while at Knox Grammar School, Sydney: bronze 2013, bronze 2014, gold 2015 (ranked 19th, Australia 6th - Australia's best-ever result), bronze 2016.Aug 11, 2016
• His quantum-factoring work drew mainstream press: Scientific American (Peter Hall, July 2026) covered his unclonable-encryption results and how AI is changing research; MIT Schwarzman College of Computing produced a video talk on the state of the art of quantum factoring.Jul 2026
• Research output is prolific for a PhD student: first-author or co-author on papers at CRYPTO, STOC, TCC, ITCS, ICALP, Eurocrypt, QIP; Google Scholar shows 177 citations, h-index 6 (as of 2026).2026
• Visiting graduate student at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing for multiple programs (Quantum Computing Summer Clusters 2025 and 2026; Spectral Theory Beyond Graphs and Pseudorandomness & High-Dimensional Expansion, Fall 2026), indicating an active presence in the theoretical CS research community.2026
• Undergraduate advisor at Princeton was S. Matthew Weinberg (co-author on the max-cut cut-query complexity paper, ICALP 2024).2025
• Has remained tied to the olympiad community as an organizer: IMO Problem Selection Committee member and Coordinator (grader) in 2025, and a trainer and grader for Australia's IMO team in 2017 and 2020-2024.2025