Bowen Yang

I am a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at Harvard University and a member of the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications. I work with Dan Freed and Michael Hopkins, with support through the Simons Collaboration on Global Categorical Symmetries. I co-organize the CMSA Q&A Seminar and Michael Freedman Seminar.

My research sits at the interface of topology, algebra, and quantum many-body physics. Broadly speaking, I try to bring the point of view of algebraic topology—classification by invariants, functoriality, and homotopical structure—to problems about quantum states, locality-preserving dynamics, and exactly solvable lattice models. Concretely, I draw on commutative algebra and stable homotopy theory to study quantum cellular automata, topological phases of matter, and the mathematical structure of error-correcting codes. I am especially interested in cases where abstract mathematics genuinely clarifies physics: when it reveals the right notion of bulk versus boundary, makes a classification theorem possible, or turns a qualitative picture into an invariant that can actually be defined.

I gave a three-day lecture series at the RIKEN–IPMU mini-workshop on QCA and K-theory, held August 24–26, 2026 at Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo. You can find recordings here

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