(if you can read that this is Greta’s own poster, you do not need glasses)
Recent Major Updates:
(last edited: 6/30/2026)
- (2026) Announced solution (with Michael Beeson and Miklos Laczokovich) to Erdos Problem 633. (ArXiv link) -> Research (Yan X Zhang)
- (2025) Started a new CAMCOS collaboration with 0xPARC after a long collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation.
- (2025) Team BAYZ (Boris Alexeev and I) won a bug bounty and demonstrated a generalizable attack on chunking-based cloud storage services. Paper (with Colin Percival) and Hackernews discussion.
- (2025) Finshed my Geopolitics and AI Forecasting post (Metaculus) as a deliverable for my Future Fund grant, which originally closed but was rescued by the Open Philanthropy Project.
- (2024) Cowrote (with Evan Chen, Brian Lawrence, Brian Gu, Elain Shi) Programmable Cryptography: Four Easy Pieces.
- (2023) Finished Origami (Folding Custom Gates with Verifier Input) with Aard Vark. Invited to Zuzalu for talk.
This is the academic webpage of Yan Zhang (I publish under Yan X Zhang). I am now an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at San Jose State University. Previously, I was a Morrey Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley in 2013-2016. I received my Ph. D. in mathematics at MIT under Richard Stanley in June 2013, after a B.A. in mathematics at Harvard University.
- Research: I do research in a variety of problems. My main training is incombinatorics, usually with a classic enumerative / algebraic bent (involving linear algebra and generating functions). Most of my work is interdisciplinary bridge-building, studying discrete mathematical structures that come from other fields such as physics, biology, and social science. For a list of my research (including talks), please see the Research page.
- SPARC / Teaching / Mentoring: I think a lot about teaching and mentoring, both in and outside the university teaching context. For some thoughts on teaching and a list of my teaching-related activities, please see the Teaching page. My most important project is directing SPARC, a very special summer camp for gifted high schoolers.
- Industry: I am unhealthily attracted to side projects, such as consulting, mentoring, or strategic work with tech companies, research organizations, and independent researchers. Representative work includes optimizing scheduling with Remix, working on consensus algorithms and cryptoeconomics with the Ethereum Foundation, and programmable cryptography with 0xPARC.
For non-academic things, please see my personal page.
Blue Slate 