I am an assistant professor at the Theoretical Computer Science group of the Informatics Institute of the University of Amsterdam, working together with the QuSoft research center.

My research focuses on two areas. The first is the usage of diagrammatic techniques in quantum computation. In particular, figuring out how the ZX-calculus can be used to improve our reasoning about quantum processes in order to do better quantum circuit optimisation, classical simulation and verification. I am cocreator of the open source optimising quantum compiler PyZX, a Python tool for using the ZX-calculus on quantum circuits. Check out my review article on the ZX-calculus if you want to learn more.

My second area of research is in quantum foundations where I try to better understand the nature of quantum mechanics through algebraic and compositional methods. The guiding question here is why nature is described by the laws of quantum mechanics. I try to answer this question by showing that certain natural assumptions or restrictions on physical theories automatically lead one down the path of quantum theory.