Theo McKenzie Hello! I am a Stanford Science Fellow in the Department of Mathematics. 2022-2023, I was an NSF MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard. 2017-2022, I was a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley, where I was very fortunate to be advised by Nikhil Srivastava and Luca Trevisan. I research the spectral geometry of discrete systems. More generally, I am interested in questions in analysis and probability motivated by statistical physics and computer science. Before my Ph.D., I received my bachelor's degree from Harvard and worked as a trader for 2 years. My office is 384-C in Sloan Hall. E-mail: theom at stanford.edu CV (updated September 2024)

Research Papers

• Optimal Eigenvalue Rigidity of Random Regular Graphs
  with Jiaoyang Huang and Horng-Tzer Yau
  arxiv:2405.12161


• The Spectral Edge of Constant Degree Erdős-Rényi Graphs
  with Ella Hiesmayr
  arXiv:2309.11007 Submitted


• Nodal Decompositions of a Symmetrix Matrix
  with John Urschel
  arXiv:2305.10598 International Mathematics Research Notices


• Explicit Two-sided Unique-neighbor Expanders
  with Jun-Ting Hsieh, Sidhanth Mohanty, and Pedro Paredes
  arXiv:2302.01212 STOC 2024


• Quantum Ergodicity for Periodic Graphs
  with Mostafa Sabri
  arXiv:2208.12685 Commuications in Mathematical Physics


• Many Nodal Domains in Random Regular Graphs
  with Shirshendu Ganguly, Sidhanth Mohanty, and Nikhil Srivastava
  arXiv:2109.11532 Commuications in Mathematical Physics Slides


• The Necessity of Conditions for Graph Quantum Ergodicity and Cartesian Products with an Infinite Graph
  arXiv:2106.09772 Comptes Rendus Mathématique Slides


• Support of Closed Walks and Second Eigenvalue Multiplicity of Graphs
  with Peter Rasmussen and Nikhil Srivastava
  arXiv:2007.12819. STOC 2021 Slides


• High-girth Near-Ramanujan Graphs with Lossy Vertex Expansion
  with Sidhanth Mohanty
  arXiv:2007.13630. ICALP 2021


• A New Algorithm for the Robust Semi-random Independent Set Problem
  with Hermish Mehta and Luca Trevisan
  arXiv:1808.03633. SODA 2020 Slides

Expository Papers

• Predictive Policing: A Mathematical Primer
  Link
  with Joseph Johnson and Tian An Wong
  Notices of the AMS


• Real Stable Polynomials, Description and Application
  Undergraduate Thesis
  Advised by Péter Csikvári
  Harvard Mathematics Library

Teaching