Princeton Computer Science

Alex Lombardi, an expert in cryptography, has won a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

The award, a top honor for early career faculty, will support Lombardi's research on the theory and foundations of classical and quantum cryptography.

Lombardi's work focuses on a relatively new frontier in cryptography — how quantum computers change cryptographic capabilities. He is developing a theoretical foundation for constructing and analyzing fundamental cryptographic protocols — like encryption, hash functions and digital signatures — that work in a post-quantum context.

https://bit.ly/4bzPM3Q

Danqi Chen, an expert in large language models, has been featured by the Communications of the ACM for her foundational work building small LLMs, which are vital to making modern models available on edge devices such as mobile phones.

Techniques developed by Chen have been used by companies like Meta and Nvidia, among others. Much of the work was funded through NSF grants.

This story is part of a broader effort by the Communications of the ACM to explore the impact of federally funded research in computing across many fields, including cryptography, AI, networking, reinforcement learning and others.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4ya5BrS

At the end of May, Yacoub Kahkajian graduated from Princeton University with a degree in computer science. This summer, he will begin working as a data engineer at BlackRock.

A first-generation college student, Kahkajian decided to major in computer science after seeing his parents, who had limited English proficiency, struggle to use everyday technology like banking applications. “I’ve witnessed firsthand how poor code and confusing apps can further widen the digital divide,” he said.

Kahkajian’s goal at Princeton was to learn how to build technology that could work for everyone. His classes at Princeton helped him learn how to do this, he said, particularly COS 343: Algorithms for Computational Biology, where he learned how to use algorithms to solve real problems in the natural sciences, and COS 350: Ethics in Computing, where he learned how to analyze the biases of algorithms used in fields like criminal justice and real estate.

Outside of the classroom, he helped develop digital products for non-technical organizations including The Daily Princetonian, where he was the chief technology officer. He also was a product management intern at New Voters, a non-profit organization that registers young people to vote.

Some of Kahkajian’s favorite courses at Princeton were COS 375: Computer Architecture & Organization and COS 487: Theory of Computation. Both courses, he said, challenged him to think about the interaction between software and hardware. “Learning how code actually translates to instructions for a computer, and how to make those instructions more efficient using math and logic, helped me become a sharper programmer,” he said.

Margaret Martonosi, William M. Addy ’82 University Professor at Princeton University, is part of a Yale-led initiative working to develop the first large-scale, error-correcting quantum computer. The project was recently awarded $4 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The initiative, Erasure Qubits and Dynamic Circuits for Quantum Advantage, was one of six projects awarded $1 million by the NSF more than a year ago. Earlier this week, the NSF announced an additional $4 million to support the second phase of work.

The research is focused on finding a new way to tackle error correction, featuring “erasure flag” quantum bits that identify errors when they occur, making them easier to fix, said Steven Girvin, professor of physics at Yale University and the principal investigator on the project.

https://news.yale.edu/2026/06/25/new-vision-quantum-computing-takes-big-step-forward-new-grant

A month ago, Toluwanimi Ariyo graduated from Princeton University with a degree in computer science. Soon, he will begin working at Stripe as a software engineer.

Ariyo said that the most important thing he learned at Princeton was how to ask good questions. “If you do not probe and challenge constantly,” he said, “there will be no comprehension.” He also learned the important skill of how to work with a talented group of peers under pressure.

During his time at Princeton he was involved in the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club and served as the director of Tigers in Product, a student organization that provides opportunities to learn about product engineering and design. He organized workshops and events, often bringing alumni to campus to share real-world perspectives. “It was definitely challenging at times, but also a lot of fun and easily one of the most rewarding parts of my experience here,” Ariyo said.

Today we remember Alan Turing, born on this day in 1912.

Turing completed a doctorate in math at Princeton University in 1938. His groundbreaking work helped set the foundations for computing and artificial intelligence.

During World War II, he helped break the German Enigma encryption, aiding the Allied war effort. As a gay man, he was jailed and persecuted in the UK. He died by su***de in 1954, at the age of 41.

His portrait, by Jordan Sokol, hangs in the Lewis Library on Princeton's campus.

Nora Graves graduated from Princeton University in May with a major in computer science and minors in linguistics and German.

Always fascinated by the puzzle of language, Graves wrote an interdisciplinary senior thesis that compared automated approaches to adding diacritics to the Yorùbá language of Nigeria. Much of digitized Yorùbá text lacks the necessary accent marks because typing them out on an English keyboard is difficult. This complicates the language’s ability to be understood by non-native speakers and machine learning systems.

Graves ran 43,470 sentences of Yorùbá text through both a syllable-based statistical model and a sequence-to-sequence LLM, repeating the test several times. The statistical model proved to be more accurate, while the LLM had a higher error and hallucination rate. Her research was advised by Christiane Fellbaum, senior research scholar in computer science, and Laura Kalin, associate professor of linguistics.

Graves said she was grateful for Princeton’s support in her cross-disciplinary scholarship. “I think it’s really wonderful how Princeton makes it possible for students to find their own path this way,” she said. “You don’t have to just do one thing; you can have a new idea, and Princeton will then help you scaffold that.”

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4ewoJr1

At the end of May, Alexander Khoretonenko graduated from Princeton University with a degree in computer science. Soon, he will begin working in consulting at Oliver Wyman in New York City.

Khoretonenko learned two very important lessons as an undergrad, he said. The first was to appreciate community: “perhaps even more important than the work you do is the people that you do it with." The second lesson was to actively build a habit of learning: “curiosity requires practice," he said.

Two courses he took also helped to shape his experience as a computer science major: COS 521: Advanced Algorithm Design, taught by Huacheng Yu, and COS 445: Economics and Computation, taught by Matt Weinberg. The first was particularly challenging, he said, the second was very memorable.

“I made some phenomenal friends in the computer science department,” said Khoretonenko. And each became interested in different areas of computer science, he added. “It’s really wonderful to see everyone finding their own path.”

At the end of May, David Beeson ‘26, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in computer science. In the fall, he will enroll at the University of Oxford to pursue a master’s degree in computer science with a specialization in artificial intelligence.

At Princeton, Beeson was a member of the varsity squash team and was named a Scholar-Athlete by the College Squash Association. One of the most important things he learned at Princeton, Beeson said, was “how to incorporate my passions into my work.”

Working in the Princeton Visual AI Lab and advised by Olga Russakovsky, Beeson was able to combine his interests in squash and computer science, developing methods for reconstructing 3D squash ball trajectories from 2D video footage of squash matches. This project became his senior thesis.

For his junior independent work, also advised by Russakovsky, he combined his interests in conservation and technology, working with Mary Stoddard’s lab on a project to detect hummingbirds in long-form video. Applying computer vision techniques to ecological field work, he found ways to automate hummingbird detection.

Beeson’s favorite class at Princeton was COS 360: Computational Models of Cognition, taught by Tom Griffiths. The course, cross-listed in psychology, explores the development of computational brain models in parallel to the way AI systems have been developed. “It was the coolest interdisciplinary COS experience,” Beeson said. “It was fascinating to see how insights from one field can help inform our understanding of another.”

Adji Bousso Dieng has won a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a top honor for early career faculty!

Dieng, an assistant professor of computer science, will use the grant to build AI methods for discovering new molecules and materials. Dieng’s research seeks to create a new paradigm for AI, introducing diversity-centered mathematical frameworks across the entire machine learning pipeline, forcing AI systems to actively hunt for novelty, rarity, and untapped chemical structures.

Ultimately, research aims to provide open-source tools to help the broader scientific community bypass current AI limitations, transforming AI into a method of scientific exploration capable of uncovering revolutionary new materials that will shape the future of science across disciplines.

https://bit.ly/4udRPRK