Yan’s Personal Page

(last update: 6/30/2026)

Current colonizers of my time, in order of time spent:

• (2019-) My son Locke is currently my most needy employer.
• (2016-) SJSU associate professor of mathematics.
  • My academic page is here.
  • I am the director of CAMCOS. During my tenure we have worked on 15+ student-led projects with industry liaisons (special thanks to the Ethereum Foundation and 0xPARC)
• (2012-) SPARC director and instructor, where I corrupt accelerated youth.
• (2023-) Consultant: 0xPARC / Field Extension Institute
  • Cowrote (with Evan Chen, Brian Lawrence, Brian Gu, Elain Shi) Programmable Cryptography: Four Easy Pieces

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Previous Lives and Main Sidequests

• (2026) Announced solution (with Michael Beeson and Miklos Laczokovich) to Erdos Problem 633. (ArXiv link)
• (2018-2024) consultant / collaborator with Ethereum Foundation. We run workshops (so far invite-only, at Stanford and MIT) to work on theoretical problems that arise from blockchain.
  • Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain paper (SJSU CAMCOS Project with the Ethereum Foundation)
• (2013-2016): Postdoc, UC Berkeley (consulting at various tech startups: Remix, Cerebras, k-Motion)
  • (2016) Team BAYZ (Boris Alexeev and I) got third place on this Kaggle contest for March Madness predictions.
• 2008-2013: PhD, Mathematics, MIT
  • cofounded SPARC
  • cofounded Vivana, a healthcare startup based in Cambridge)
• 2008: Researcher / Developer, Ellington Management (Atlantic City / Pokerstars poker games)
• 2003-2007: BA, Mathematics, Harvard University (Harvard Men’s Ultimate, Cabot House poker games, ACM Team Captain)
• 1999-2003: Thomas Jefferson High School (MOP, IMO, USACO, RSI, Clay Institute Research Academy, Canada-USA Math Camp)