
Research Programs
Research Programs
The Institute typically hosts two concurrent programs per semester. Programs are selected with a view toward maximizing impact and engagement across the theoretical computer science community, as well as impact on neighboring scientific fields. A typical one-semester program is led by a small group of organizers who are recognized experts in their fields, and involves about 60–70 long-term participants (a mix of senior and junior researchers) who spend a month or longer at the Institute. A program usually includes three week-long topical workshops, each of which attracts an additional group of invited speakers and focuses on a different aspect of the program's scientific scope, as well as an initial boot camp designed to put long-term participants on the same page.
Current Program
This program will bring together researchers in computational complexity, proof complexity, cryptography, and learning theory to make progress on fundamental problems in those areas using the framework of "meta-complexity" — i.e., complexity of...



Spring 2023
This program will bring together researchers in computational complexity, proof complexity, cryptography, and learning theory to make progress on fundamental problems in those areas using the framework of "meta-complexity" — i.e., complexity of computational tasks that are themselves about complexity.
This extended reunion is for long-term participants in the program Satisfiability: Theory, Practice, and Beyond, held in the Spring 2021 semester. It will provide an opportunity to meet old and new friends. Moreover, we hope that it will give everyone a chance to reflect on the progress made during the semester and since, and sketch in which directions the field should go in the future.
Summer 2023
This program will study new approaches for analysis of functions over the Boolean hypercube and beyond, with the aim of making progress on fundamental problems in complexity, algorithms, and discrete mathematics.
The Summer Cluster on Quantum Computing will bring together researchers from academia and industry to explore topics from quantum complexity theory and cryptography to quantum algorithms, error-correction and fault tolerance, and benchmarking.
Fall 2023
This program studies the interaction between logic and the algorithms that they inspire, with applications to databases, complexity theory, and knowledge representation.
This program will bring together researchers in dynamic graphs, sketching, and optimization towards the common goals of obtaining provably faster algorithms, finding new connections between the areas, and making new advances at their intersection.
Spring 2024
This program brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers to explore the frontiers of the theory and practice of error correcting codes.
This program will bring together researchers from computer science, physics, chemistry and mathematics to address current challenges in quantum computing, such as the efficiency of protocols for fault-tolerant quantum computation, scalable proofs of quantumness, demonstrations of quantum advantage, as well as the development of quantum algorithms.
The Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing offers numerous ways for scientists to participate in the life of the Institute.
- Applications for the Simons Quantum Postdoctoral Fellowships.
- Applications for Science Communicators in Residence for Summer 2022, Fall 2022, and Spring 2023.
Fall 2022
This program will bring together experts from various fields to study networks, from graph limits, to modeling and estimation, to processes on networks. Application areas include epidemics, spread of information and other economic and social processes.
This program aims to develop algorithms for sequential decision problems under a variety of models of uncertainty, with participants from TCS, machine learning, operations research, stochastic control and economics.
Summer 2022
This cluster will aim to develop the theoretical foundations of deep learning, particularly the aspects of this methodology that are very different from classical statistical approaches.
This summer program aims to bring together computational and applied researchers to address key challenges in bioinformatics.
This cluster focuses on the growing concerns regarding the future of individuals, groups, societal institutions and values shaped, manipulated, and challenged by the imperatives of AI.
Convenes an interdisciplinary group of scholars to develop firm theoretical and philosophical foundations for addressing some major issues concerning the interpretability of machine learning–based models.
This extended reunion will study fundamental questions on integer lattices and their important role in cryptography and quantum computation, bringing together researchers from number theory, algorithms, optimization, cryptography, and coding theory.
Spring 2022
By bringing together researchers from machine learning, economics, operations research, theoretical computer science, and social computing, this program aims to advance the connections between learning theory, game theory, and mechanism design.
Fall 2021
This program brings together researchers in complexity theory, algorithms, statistics, learning theory, probability, and information theory to advance the methodology for reasoning about the computational complexity of statistical estimation problems.
This program aims to develop a geometric approach to various computational problems in sampling, optimization, and partial differential equations.
Spring 2021
Focusing on new developments in logic, automata, probabilistic modeling, games, and cyber-physical systems, this program aims to develop the theoretical foundations of computer systems.
This program aims to foster interaction between theoreticians and practitioners to understand real-world efficient computation with a particular focus on the satisfiability problem for Boolean formulas.
Fall 2020
This program will bring together researchers in computer science, control theory, operations research and statistics to advance the theoretical foundations of reinforcement learning.
This program aims to advance our understanding of high-dimensional problems by focusing on the interplay between probability, geometry, and computation.
Spring 2020
This program will bring together researchers from computer science, physics, chemistry and mathematics to focus on the two grand challenges of quantum computation: developing the most promising algorithmic applications for quantum computers, and developing methods to test quantum devices.
This program will study fundamental questions on integer lattices and their important role in cryptography and quantum computation, bringing together researchers from number theory, algorithms, optimization, cryptography, and coding theory.
Fall 2019
This program will bring together researchers from Computer Science and beyond, whose research is contributing to three subthemes: proof systems, decentralized consensus, and applications of these to society, economics, and cryptocurrencies.