Francisca Vasconcelos
franvasco.bsky.social
Francisca Vasconcelos
@franvasco.bsky.social
CS PhD Student @ UC Berkeley
Interested in Quantum Computing & ML
Qubit x Qubit Founding Academic Director

https://franciscavasconcelos.github.io/
I was very excited to present my first research project on quantum algorithms at QSim 2025! This work, joint with András Gilyén, develops new space-time and space-accuracy tradeoffs for manipulation of block encodings, helping reduce ancilla-overhead in quantum algorithms.

youtu.be/7AaZzzoSAic?...
Francisca Vasconcelos: “Methods for Reducing Ancilla-Overhead in Block Encodings”
YouTube video by Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
youtu.be
September 23, 2025 at 3:06 AM
In exciting new work with Ben Foxman, @nat-parham.bsky.social , and @henryyuen.bsky.social we show that t-designs and pseudorandom unitaries are implementable in constant (quantum) time!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.11487
Random Unitaries in Constant (Quantum) Time
Random unitaries are a central object of study in quantum information, with applications to quantum computation, quantum many-body physics, and quantum cryptography. Recent work has constructed unitar...
arxiv.org
August 19, 2025 at 12:22 AM
What better way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of quantum mechanics than a foundations conference in Gdańsk? I especially enjoyed learning about modern work on contextuality, quantum speed limits, & generalized probability + sharing ideas on connections between quantum logic and the QSVT ⚛️
July 2, 2025 at 9:36 AM
I had a lot of fun giving my first philosophy (lightning) talk and catching up with quantum learning theory friends at Foundations of Quantum Computing 2025, in Edinburgh!
June 18, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Francisca Vasconcelos
A Quadratic Speedup in Finding Nash Equilibria of Quantum Zero-Sum Games
Quantum 9, 1737 (2025). https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-05-06-1737 Recent developments in domains such as non-local games, quantum interactive proofs, and quantum generative adversarial networks have renewed interest in quantum game theory and, specifically, quantum zero-sum games. Central to classical game theory is the efficient algorithmic computation of Nash equilibria, which represent optimal strategies for both players. In 2008, Jain and Watrous proposed the first classical algorithm for computing equilibria in quantum zero-sum games using the Matrix Multiplicative Weight Updates (MMWU) method to achieve a convergence rate of $\mathcal{O}(d/\epsilon^2)$ iterations to $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria in the $4^d$-dimensional spectraplex. In this work, we propose a hierarchy of quantum optimization algorithms that generalize MMWU via an extra-gradient mechanism. Notably, within this proposed hierarchy, we introduce the Optimistic Matrix Multiplicative Weights Update (OMMWU) algorithm and establish its average-iterate convergence complexity as $\mathcal{O}(d/\epsilon)$ iterations to $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria. This quadratic speed-up relative to Jain and Watrous' original algorithm sets a new benchmark for computing $\epsilon$-Nash equilibria in quantum zero-sum games. Surfing the Ocean ERC seminar talk: QTML talk slides
quantum-journal.org
May 7, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Reposted by Francisca Vasconcelos
I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.
May 4, 2025 at 6:21 AM
Last week, I spoke at the Surfing the Ocean ERC seminar on faster classical algorithms for finding Nash equilibria of quantum zero-sum games. In particular, we achieve an O(1/\eps) convergence rate -- a quadratic speedup over the Jain-Watrous MMWU algorithm (2009).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw0J...
Surfing the OCEAN - Francisca Vasconcelos
YouTube video by Erc Ocean
www.youtube.com
March 17, 2025 at 5:37 PM
On behalf of Qubit x Qubit:

🚀 Calling all Quantum Computing and Cybersecurity Companies in NY!

We're seeking internship hosts in NY state to provide hands-on experience in quantum computing and cybersecurity!

📨 If you’re in NY state and are interested in more details, email us at [email protected].
February 8, 2025 at 9:57 PM
At QTML 2024, I spoke about recent work with Robert Huang on "Learning shallow quantum circuits with many-qubit gates" (a.k.a. efficient learning of QAC^0 unitaries). In this ~15min talk I discuss the project motivation, key results, and high-level proof ideas.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRiJ...
Learning shallow quantum circuits with many-qubit gates - Francisca Vasconcelos
YouTube video by QTML Conference
www.youtube.com
December 18, 2024 at 6:16 PM
Very excited that our work was featured on @tomgur.bsky.social's 2024 advent calendar, alongside many great math/TCS talks from the year! 😊
Day #11: Francisca Vasconcelos on the Pauli spectrum of QAC^0. This work provides an exciting new approach toward proving quantum circuit lower bounds via a quantum analogue of Fourier analysis, called Pauli analysis.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpRp...
Francisca Vasconcelos (Berkeley) — On the Pauli Spectrum of QAC^0
YouTube video by QuSoft
www.youtube.com
December 12, 2024 at 2:04 AM
Reposted by Francisca Vasconcelos
Day two of #qtml2024 brings another bouquet of exciting talks, e.g, by Maria Schuld and Kristan Temme - and also my plenary talk and a small technical talk have been happening today. I like how the meeting is developing: Lots of solid, rigorous technical work.
November 26, 2024 at 4:00 AM