About me

Hello! My name is Kesha. I’m interested in compilers, program analysis and formal verification. I got my PhD in 2022 in Computer Science at the University of Maryland, where I was advised by Mike Hicks. I did my undergraduate in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota.

For my dissertation, I designed and implemented SQIR, a small quantum intermediate representation embedded in the Coq proof assistant, and VOQC, a verified optimizer for quantum circuits. You can learn more about SQIR and VOQC in this blog post, or you can check out my dissertation.

I spent two years as an Applied Scientist in the Automated Reasoning in Identity Group at Amazon (AWS) where I worked on the Cedar authorization language.

In my free time, I enjoy include puzzles, painting, and spending time with my three cats and husband, Thomas Rolinger.