© Manon Blanc
- I am a Research Associate at the School of Informatics in the University of Edinburgh.
- I am a member of the Quantum Programming Group in the Quantum Software Lab.
- I am, together with my colleagues
Chris Heunen,
Robin Kaarsgaard,
Malin Altenmüller,
Alex Rice and
方望 (Fang Wang),
a member of the project EPSRC Rubber DUQ
: Flexible Dynamic Universal
Quantum programming. - Before this, I was a PhD student at LMF in ENS Paris-Saclay and Université Paris-Saclay under the supervision of Benoît Valiron and Vladimir Zamdzhiev.
- You can find my CV here. I'll try to update it as regularly as possible.
© Malin Altenmüller
Contact
For research or teaching purposes, don't hesitate to get in touch with me at: louis (dot) lemonnier (at) ed (dot) ac (dot) uk.
I am also on Mastodon! 🐘
Defence
I defended my PhD on 19th June 2024. My thesis, The Semantics of Effects: Centrality, Quantum Control and Reversible Recursion, is available on my webpage, on the arXiv and on the official French website theses.fr. My slides are here.
Research
My research lies at the intersection between mathematics (algebra, category theory, topology), computer science (programming languages, semantics) and quantum theory (Hilbert spaces, CPTP maps, C*-algebras).
My main focus resides on the semantics of quantum programming languages; in other words, I provide an interpretation of programs using techniques from logic and mathematics, in particular topology and category theory.
Through category theory, I study the structure of quantum computing. This understanding of the structure provides insights on the design of new (and better) primitives aimed at quantum programming languages.
My interest in quantum computing has also led me to work on reversible programming languages, and on the semantics of effects.
Developing the semantics of a programming language enhances one's understanding of this language, and it can sometimes highlight which aspects of the language can be improved. Moreover, semantics offers a formal setting for a type-safe verified compilation of a (high-level) language to hardware.
Program Committees
- RC'2025 (17th International Conference on Reversible Computation).
Organisation Committees
- QI CDT (Quantum Informatics Centre for Doctoral Training) Spring School 2026.
- Rubber DUQ workshop (upcoming).
Publications
-
Non-cartesian guarded recursion with daggers.
To appear in MFPS'26. arXiv:2409.14591. - Coauthored with
Chris Heunen
and
Robin Kaarsgaard.
One rig to control them all.
To appear in LICS'26. arXiv:2510.05032. - Coauthored with
Chris Heunen,
Christopher McNally,
and
Alex Rice.
Quantum circuits are just a phase.
POPL'26. DOI. arXiv:2507.11676. - Coauthored with
Kinnari Dave,
Romain Péchoux,
and
Vladimir Zamdzhiev.
Combining quantum and classical control: syntax, semantics and adequacy.
FoSSaCS'25. DOI. Paper. - Coauthored with
Kostia Chardonnet
and
Benoît Valiron.
Semantics for a Turing-complete Reversible Programming Language with Inductive Types.
FSCD'24. DOI. arXiv:2309.12151. - Coauthored with
Titouan Carette
and
Vladimir Zamdzhiev.
Central Submonads and Notions of Computation: Soundness, Completeness and Internal Languages.
LICS'23. DOI. arXiv:2207.09190. - Coauthored with
Kostia Chardonnet
and
Benoît Valiron.
Categorical Semantics of Reversible Pattern-Matching.
MFPS'21. DOI. arXiv:2109.05837. - Coauthored with
John van de Wetering
and
Aleks Kissinger.
Hypergraph Simplification: Linking the Path-sum Approach to the ZH-calculus.
QPL'20. DOI. arXiv:2003.13564.
Preprints
- Coauthored with
Kinnari Dave,
Romain Péchoux,
and
Vladimir Zamdzhiev.
A programming language combining quantum and classical control.
Submitted to LMCS (FoSSaCS'25 special issue). arXiv:2511.22537. - Coauthored with
Titouan Carette.
Large-scale quantum diagrammatic reasoning tools, !-boxes vs. scalable notations.
arXiv:2204.11702.
Teaching
2025-2026 (University of Edinburgh):
- QI CDT group project: supervision of the Quantum programming languages group.
- Introduction to Quantum Programming and Semantics, guest lecture.
2024-2025 (University of Edinburgh):
- PL Foundations in Agda, tutorials and guest lecture. Webpage.
- Introduction to Quantum Programming and Semantics, tutorials and guest lecture.
2023-2024 (ENS Paris-Saclay):
- Discrete mathematics, tutorials.
- Programming and semantics, tutorials. My resources (in French).
2022-2023 (ENS Paris-Saclay):
- Project: Functional programming and Go compiler in OCaml.
- Computability, tutorials. My resources (in French).
- Programming and semantics, tutorials. My resources (in French).
2021-2022 (ENS Paris-Saclay):
Other interests
To contact me about anything in this section: llemonnier (at) crans (dot) org.
Outside mathematics and computer science, I spend a lot of time learning about natural and constructed languages. I have never focused my full attention on one in particular. Thus, I have some knowledge in many languages, and I speak a few of them. My goal is to eventually create a language I am proud of, which will take a while.
I also play the bass when I find the time.
Alba /ˈal̪ˠapə/
View from the Saddle on the isle of Arran
View of Loch Long on the way to the Cobbler
Sunrise from Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh
Little harbour in Kirkcaldy
View from the bank of Loch Lìobhann
South-East foghorn, Isle of May
Cairn on the way to the top of Ben Nevis
Pointers
Some colleagues and friends, except the ones already cited above.
- Leela Azorin
- Manon Blanc
- Lison Blondeau-Patissier
- Maxime Bombar
- Robert Booth
- Baptiste Chanus
- Alexandre D'Hooge
- Noé Delorme
- Elena Di Lavore
- Matthew Di Meglio
- María Gragera Garcés
- Lucas (Dread) Gréaux
- James Hefford
- Nicolas Heurtel
- 平田賢吾 (Hirata Kengo)
- Charlie Jacomme
- Victor Léger
- Dominik Leichtle
- Camille Lemonnier 🐧
- Thea Li
- Simon Mirwasser
- Lê Thành Dũng (Tito) Nguyễn
- Mario Román
- Alexandre Sac--Morane
- Lev-Arcady Sellem
- Kim Worrall
I organised a Spring School about Quantum Informatics, 24-29 May 2026, on the Isle of Skye! Here is the associated website!