Nicholas Kocurek

Fall 2025, I am starting as a CSE PhD student at the University of Washington Allen School as part of the CS Theory and Quantum CS Groups. Previously, I did my undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University.

Contact is nichok6[at]cs[dot]washington[dot]edu.
Picture is from the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center in Philly

Nicholas Kocurek

Fall 2025, I am starting as a CSE PhD student at the University of Washington Allen School as part of the CS Theory and Quantum CS Groups. Previously, I did my undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University.

Contact is nichok6[at]cs[dot]washington[dot]edu.

Research

I am broadly interested in theoretical computer science and particularly in beyond worst-case complexity theory of any kind. Recently, I have been thinking about what makes CSPs hard and how Markov chains mix.

Publications

  • Spectral Refutations of Semirandom 𝑘-LIN over Larger Fields

    with Peter Manohar

    Manuscript. [pdf]

  • Pseudorandomness Properties of Random Reversible Circuits

    with William Gay, William He, and Ryan O'Donnell

    CRYPTO 2025. [arXiv]

Other Writings

  • Streaming Stable Matchings

    CMU 15-851 Course Project. [pdf]

Teaching and Service

In the past I have TAed:

Along with teaching, I spent a large part of my undergrad serving on CMU SCS's Student Advisory Council.

Miscellaneous

I am a big fan of , Pittsburgh sports, social deduction games, and mystery novels.

Here is a simple diagram explaining the strange etymology of "kolache" in Texas.

Miscellaneous

I am a big fan of animation (broadly defined), Pittsburgh sports, social deduction games, and mystery novels.

Here is a simple diagram explaining the strange etymology of "kolache" in Texas.