Anand Natarajan

Anand V Natarajan is an associate professor and the ITT Career Development Professor in Computer Technology at MIT in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research is in theoretical quantum information. Natarajan is particularly interested in nonlocality (e.g. Bell inequalities and nonlocal games), quantum complexity theory (especially the power of quantum interactive proof systems), and semidefinite programming hierarchies. Natarajan is a recipient of the NSF Career Fellowship (2024) and a FOCS Best Paper Award (2019). He earned his PhD in physics from MIT, and an MS in computer science and BS in physics from Stanford University.

Selected Publications

• Gunn, S., Tauman Kalai, Y., Natarajan, A., & Villányi, Á. (2025). Classical commitments to quantum states. Proceedings of the 57th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 234–244.
• Metger, T., Natarajan, A., & Zhang, T. (2024). Succinct arguments for QMA from standard assumptions via compiled nonlocal games. IEEE 65th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), 1193–1201. 
• Dong, Y., Fu, H., Natarajan, A., Qin, M., Xu, H., & Yao, P. (2025). The computational advantage of MIP* vanishes in the presence of noise. Journal of the ACM, 72(6), 38.

Media

• November 12, 2025: CNN, A seismic shift in computing is on the horizon (and it’s not AI)
• March 18, 2025: EECS News, Department of EECS announces 2025 promotions and appointments
• December 20, 2021: EECS News, Five in EECS Appointed to Career Development Professorships