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Richard Kueng is full professor for Computing Technologies at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. As of 2024, he’s also an elected member of the young wing of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Born and raised in the vicinity of Linz, Richard Kueng pursued his academic studies from 2007 to 2012 at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. After completing a BSc in Interdisciplinary Sciences and a MSc in Physics (top of his class), he started his doctoral studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany. With an academic exchange at the University of Sydney in-between, he completed his doctorate at the University of Cologne in 2016 (summa cum laude). After brief postdoc appointments in Cologne and Berlin (Free University), Richard Kueng joined the California Institute of Technology. From 2017 to 2020, he held a joint research position at both the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM) and the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS). In 2020, Richard Kueng returned “home” to Linz and is currently associate professor (tenured) at the Department of Computer Science at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

Richard Kueng pursues an interdisciplinary research agenda at the interface between computer science (algorithms & computational complexity), physics (quantum information & quantum technologies) and applied math (convex geometry & high dimensional probability theory). Broadly speaking, he aspires to develop efficient and simple solutions for important algorithmic challenges that also come with rigorous performance guarantees. Concrete examples are efficient subroutines for quantum and classical data processing, as well as (convex) optimization. Applications in optics, wireless communication, the math of voting and electronic design automation are also within his portfolio.

Together with Hsin-Yuan Huang and John Preskill (both at Caltech), Richard Kueng developed the classical shadow formalism – an efficient quantum-to-classical conversion procedure that has made a lasting impact on quantum computing technologies.

As an academic, Richard Kueng has worked at a total of 9 academic institutions spanning 3 continents. Since 2014, he contributed more than 50 scientific articles – most of which have been published in prestigious journals and conference proceedings, Science, Nature Physics, Physical Review Letters and many more. He received several awards for his academic track record, e.g. the ETH Zürich Willi Studer Prize (2013), the GECCO Human competitive results award (2017), the Quantum2Business applied NISQ computing paper award (2021) and the Kardinal Innitzer Prize (2022). Richard Kueng has also been an associate editor for Quantum, serves in the technical programme committee for leading quantum conferences, evaluates proposals for the European Union, values academic teaching (excellent evaluations throughout) and has close ties to quantum industry (amazon science, Google Quantum AI, IBM Quantum, Alpine Quantum Technologies).

In 2023, Richard Kueng received both an FWF START award (acceptance rate: ~8%) and an ERC Starting Grant (acceptance rate: ~14%) for the project q-shadows: scalable quantum-to-classical converters.

Curriculum Vitae

Personal Data

Name:	Richard Küng
Date of Birth:	April 25th, 1988
Nationality:	Austrian

School Education and Civilian Service

1992 -- 1993	Elementary School Linz Auhof, Austria
1993 -- 1998	Elementary School Hagenberg, Austria
1998 -- 2006	Bundesgymnasium Freistadt, Austria
2006 -- 2007	Civilian Service, Betriebsseminar Linz, Austria

Scientific Career

2007 -- 2011	Bachelor Studies in Interdisciplinary Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
	Thesis title: "An RPMD approach to the tunneling splitting"
	Supervisor: Stuart Althorpe
2011 -- 2012	Master Studies in Physics, Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
	Thesis title: "Calculating and bounding POVM norm constants"
	Supervisor: Matthias Christandl
2012 -- 2015	Doctoral Studies, Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg Germany,
2015 -- 2016	Doctoral Studies (continuation), Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Germany
	Thesis title: "Convex reconstruction from structured measurements"
	Supervisor: David Gross
2017	Postdoctoral researcher, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Germany
2017	Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Physics, Free University of Berlin, Germany
2017 -- 2020	Postdoctoral researcher, California Institute of Technology, United States
	joint positions at the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences & the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter
2020 -- 2022	Assistant professor (tenure track) for quantum computing, Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
2022 -- 2024	Associate professor (tenured) for quantum computing, Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
since 2024	Full professor for Computing Technologies, Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Selected research visits extending one month

2010	Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
2015	School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia
2016	Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics, University of Bonn, Germany
2020	Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California, Berkeley, United States (cut short due to COVID-19)

Awards and Distinctions

2006	Austrian Matura, grade: 1.0, top of my class (Austrian grading scale: 1.0 (best) to 5.0 (worst)), Bundesgymnasium Freistadt, Austria
2012	Master Degree, grade: 6.0, top of my class (Swiss grading scale: 6.0 (best) to 1.0 (worst)), ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2013	Willi-Studer prize, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2016	Doctorate in Physics with distinction: summa cum laude
2017	Talentförderungsprämie für Wissenschaften, State of Upper Austria, Austria
2017	Human competitive results award, Genetic and Evolutionary Computing Conference (GECCO), Germany
2021	Applied NISQ computing paper award, Practical Quantum Computing Conference (Q2B), United States
2022	Kardinal Innitzer Prize, Archdiocese of Vienna, Austria
2023	Kepler Award for Teaching Innovation, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
2023	FWF START award for the project q-shadows: scalable quantum-classical converters
2023	ERC Starting grant for the project q-shadows: scalable quantum-classical converters
2024	Elected member of the young Austrian Academy of Sciences

Publications

Highlights (more than 100 citations)

A. Elben, S.T. Flammia, H.Y. Huang, R. Kueng, J. Preskill, B. Vermersch, P. Zoller. The randomized measurement toolbox. Nature Reviews Physics, 1-16 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00535-2

S.H. Sack, R.A. Medina, R. Kueng, M. Serbyn. Avoiding barren plateaus using classical shadows. PRX Quantum 3, 020365 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.3.020365

H.Y. Huang, R. Kueng, G. Torlai, V.A. Albert, J. Preskill. Provably efficient machine learning for quantum many-body problems. Science 377, eabk3333 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk3333

H.Y. Huang, M. Broughton, J. Cotler, S. Chen, J. Li, M. Mohseni, H. Neven, R. Babbush, R. Kueng, J. Preskill, J.R. McClean. Quantum advantage in learning from experiments. Science 376, 1182-1186 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7293

A. Neven, J. Carrasco, V. Vitale, C. Kokail, A. Elben, M. Dalmonte, P. Calabrese, P. Zoller, B. Vermerschm R. Kueng, B. Kraus. Symmetry-resolved entanglement detection using partial transpose moments. NPJ Quantum Information 7, 152 (2021) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41534-021-00487-y

H.Y. Huang, R. Kueng, J. Preskill. Efficient estimation of pauli observables by derandomization. Physical Review Letters 127, 030503 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.030503

F.G.S.L Brandão, W. Chemissany, N. Hunter-Jones, R. Kueng, J. Preskill. Models of quantum complexity growth. PRX Quantum 2, 030316 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.2.030316

H.Y. Huang, R. Kueng, J. Preskill. Information-theoretic bounds on quantum advantage in machine learning. Physical Review Letters 126, 190505 (2021) [editor’s suggestion] https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.190505

M. Guţă, J. Kahn, R. Kueng, J.A. Tropp. Fast state tomography with optimal error bounds. Journal of Physics A 53, 204001 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/ab8111

A. Elben, R. Kueng, H.Y. Huang, R. van Bijnen, C. Kokail, M. Dalmonte, P. Calabrese, B. Kraus, P. Zoller, B. Vermersch. Mixed-state entanglement from local randomized measurements. Physical Review Letters 125, 200501 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.200501

H.Y. Huang, R. Kueng, J. Preskill. Predicting many properties of a quantum system from very few measurements. Nature Physics 16, 1050-1057 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0932-7

R. Kueng. H. Rauhut, U. Testiege. Low rank matrix recovery from rank one measurements. Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis 42, 88-116 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acha.2015.07.007

D. Gross, F. Krahmer, R. Kueng. Improved recovery guarantees for phase retrieval from coded diffraction patterns. Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis 42, 37-64 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acha.2015.05.004

R. Kueng, D.N, Long, A.C. Doherty, S.T. Flammia. Comparing experiments to the fault-tolerance threshold. Physical Review Letters 117, 170502 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.170502

R. Chaves, R. Kueng, J.B. Brask, D. Gross. Unifying framework for the relaxations of the causal assumptions in Bell’s theorem. Physical Review Letters 114, 190505 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.140403

D. Gross, F. Krahmer, R. Kueng. A partial derandomization of Phaselift using spherical designs. Journal of Fourier Analysis and Applications 21, 229-266 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00041-014-9361-2

Full publication list

See Google Scholar

Theses

Rigorous and non-asymptotic theory support for near-term quantum computers 2021,
Habilitation thesis, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria,
Committee: Daniel Grosse, Karin Hummel, Martina Seidl, Armando Rastelli, Robert Wille, Alois Zoitl,
External evaluators: Elham Kashefi, Géza Tóth

Convex reconstruction from structured measurements 2016,
PhD thesis, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany,
Advisor: David Gross,
Committee: David Gross, Johannes Berg, Gitta Kutyniok

Calculating and bounding POVM norm constants 2012,
Master thesis, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland,
Advisors: Matthias Christandl, Frédéric Dupuis

An RPMD approach to the tunnelling splitting 2010,
Bachelor thesis, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom,
Advisors: Stuart Althorpe, Frédéric Merkt

Selected Teaching Materials

Selected Lecture Notes

Introduction to Quantum Computing Fall Term 2023/2024,
Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria

Introduction to Computational Complexity Fall Term 2021/2022,
Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria

Quantum and classical information processing with tensors Spring Term 2019,
Department of Computing + Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, US

Selected Tutorials

The randomized Measurement Toolbox March 2022,
QIP tutorial, Pasadena, US