Carolyn Zhang

Assistant Professor of Physics

University of British Columbia

Please note that any emails sent to cczhang@fas.harvard.edu will NOT get a response. I am not ignoring them; I simply do not receive them because that email account is closed.

Research

I am broadly interested in quantum phases of matter, in and out of equilibrium, and transitions between them. I particularly enjoy using simple toy models and physical intuition to understand seemingly complex many-body phenomena, and general arguments using ideas involving generalized symmetries. More recently, I have been exploring the interplay between decoherence, measurement, and unitary dynamics with an eye toward applications in (1) quantum error correction (2) inherently dynamical phases and phase transitions, and (3) efficient classical algorithms for simulating quantum systems. My work overlaps with topics in quantum information theory, high energy theory, and mathematical physics.

Bio

I did my PhD at UChicago with Michael Levin (2017-2023) and my postdoc at Harvard at the Society of Fellows (2023-2026). I started my faculty position at UBC summer of 2026.