Islam Faisal

PhD Candidate

Boston University

About Me

I am a PhD candidate at Boston University’s Department of Computer Science. I am interested in quantum computing, complexity theory, cryptography, security, and privacy.

I graduated with a BSc summa cum laude from the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt where I studied mathematics and computer engineering. Previously, I interned with Microsoft Research, Affectiva, Twitter, EPFL, and IPAM at UCLA. I also have experience in software engineering and machine learning.

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I am in my final year of my PhD and looking for my next adventure!

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Interests

Quantum Computing
Complexity Theory
Cryptography
Theoretical Computer Science
Security and Privacy

Education

PhD in Computer Science, In Progress

Boston University
BSc in Computer Engineering and Mathematics

The American University in Cairo
Undergradaute Visiting Project Student

EPFL

Research Summary

I am broadly interested in quantum computing, complexity theory, and cryptography. My current research studies questions such as:

What is the boundary between quantum and classical constraint satisfaction problems? [Compelxity Theory and Hamiltonian Complexity]
How can parties compute joint functions without exposing their private inputs? [Secure Multiparty Computation (MPC)]
How can one party (non-)interactively prove statements (for example, a mathematical theorem) to another untrusting party? [Proof Systems]
How can we make sure such proofs reveal nothing else? [Zero-Knowledge Proofs]
How can we make such proofs efficiently checkable? [Probabilistically Checkable Proofs (PCPs)]
How can we reduce the communication between the prover and the verifier? [Succinct Arguments]

Previously, my undergraduate journey exposed me to other interesting research topics across different areas including number theory, machine learning, security, and privacy.

Research Projects

Rounding Almost Commuting Hamiltonians

We show how to efficiently approximate any almost commuting $2$-local qubit Hamiltonian by a commuting one. As a consequence, we show that $\delta$-approximations to the ground energy for $\varepsilon$-almost commuting $2$-local $m$-term qubit Hamiltonians lie in $\mathsf{NP}$ when $\delta \gg m\varepsilon^{1/6}$, extending the classical containment well beyond the commuting setting. Additionally, we present two applications of our rounding framework: Gibbs sampling and fast Hamiltonian simulation for almost commuting systems.

Islam Faisal, Anand Natarajan, Alexander Poremba

Interactive Oracle Arguments in the QROM and Applications to Succinct Verification of Quantum Computation

This work is motivated by the following question: can an untrusted quantum server convince a classical verifier of the answer to an efficient quantum computation using only polylogarithmic communication? We show how to achieve this in the quantum random oracle model (QROM), after a non-succinct instance-independent setup phase.

Islam Faisal

CT-RSA 2024

Interactive Oracle Arguments in the QROM and Applications to Succinct Verification of Quantum Computation

Limited Proxying for Content Filtering Based on X.509 Proxy Certificate Profile

In this paper, we introduce an access-controlled limited proxying framework to allow HTTPS content filtering based on the Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Proxy Certificate Profile.

Islam Faisal, Sherif El-Kassas

SECITC 2018

Convolutional Neural Networks and Metric Learning for Facial Verification

Islam Faisal, Andrew Nguyen, Prem Talwai, Surabhi Desai, Shantanu Joshi

JMM 2018

Convolutional Neural Networks and Metric Learning for Facial Verification

Teaching

I value and enjoy teaching. I am happy and fortunate to have taught and mentored hundrends of students during my undergraduate and graduate studies.

Graduate Teaching Fellow at Boston University

CAS CS 332 (Fall 2025): Elements of the Theory of Computation (with Prof. Leonid Levin)
CAS CS 535 (Spring 2025): Complexity Theory (with Prof. Leonid Levin)
CAS CS 330 (Summer 2024): Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms (with Dr. Tiago Januario)
CAS CS 530 (Spring 2024): Advanced Algorithms (with Prof. Leonid Levin)
CAS CS 235 (Fall 2023): Algebraic Algorithms (with Prof. Leonid Levin)
CAS CS 330 (Summer 2023): Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms (with Dr. Tiago Januario)
CAS CS 332 (Fall 2021): Elements of the Theory of Computation (with Prof. Mark Bun)

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant at The American University in Cairo