Amanda Xu
amandax@cs.wisc.edu
amandashoe
I am a fourth-year CS Ph.D. student at UW-Madison advised by Aws Albarghouthi. I am broadly interested in programming languages and formal methods. My current research is at the intersection of programming languages and quantum computing. Check out our group's website to learn more about our work.
I interned at AWS during the summer of 2023, working with Ankush Desai and Lauren Pick on checking database correctness.
I received my B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University in May 2020 and spent a year working at AWS as a software engineer. As an undergraduate, I had the privilege of working on Petr4 with Nate Foster.
News
[Feb 2025] Two papers to appear at OOPSLA'25! Checking Observational Correctness of Database Systems and Dependency-Aware Compilation for Surface Code Quantum Architectures
[Feb 2025] Released wisq, our quantum-circuit compiler. pip install wisq
[Oct 2024] Optimizing Quantum Circuits, Fast and Slow accepted to ASPLOS'25!
[Mar 2024] Had a great time attending and giving a talk at APS March Meeting.
[Mar 2023] Synthesizing Quantum-Circuit Optimizers will appear at PLDI'23!
[Mar 2023] I will be returning to AWS this summer as an Applied Scientist Intern on Ankush Desai's team!
[Aug 2022] Qubit Mapping and Routing via MaxSAT will appear at MICRO'22!
[Aug 2021] Moved to Madison to start my Ph.D. at UW-Madison!
[Oct 2020] Petr4: Formal Foundations for P4 Data Planes will appear at POPL'21!
[Jun 2020] I started working as an SDE at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on the NYC Fraud Prevention team.
[May 2020] I graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Computer Science!
Publications
Optimizing Quantum Circuits, Fast and SlowAmanda Xu, Abtin Molavi, Swamit Tannu, Aws Albarghouthi
ASPLOS'25
[code] [slides]
Checking Observational Correctness of Database Systems
Lauren Pick, Amanda Xu, Ankush Desai, Sanjit A. Seshia, Aws Albarghouthi
OOPSLA'25
Dependency-Aware Compilation for Surface Code Quantum Architectures
Abtin Molavi, Amanda Xu, Swamit Tannu, Aws Albarghouthi
OOPSLA'25
Synthesizing Quantum-Circuit Optimizers
Amanda Xu, Abtin Molavi, Lauren Pick, Swamit Tannu, Aws Albarghouthi
PLDI'23
[code] [slides]
Qubit Mapping and Routing via MaxSAT
Abtin Molavi, Amanda Xu, Martin Diges, Lauren Pick, Swamit Tannu, Aws Albarghouthi
MICRO'22
Petr4: Formal Foundations for P4 Data Planes
Ryan Doenges, Mina Tahmasbi Arashloo, Santiago Bautista, Alexander Chang, Newton Ni, Samwise Parkinson, Rudy Peterson, Alaia Solko-Breslin, Amanda Xu, Nate Foster
POPL'21
Service
• PLDI 2025, Artifact Evaluation Committee• OOPSLA 2024, Artifact Evaluation Committee
• WACM Mentoring Program, Co-Chair (UW-Madison's chapter of ACM-W, ACM's Women in Computing)
• WACM Mentoring Program, Mentor