I’m a staff scientist at Sandia National Labs. I work on randomized numerical linear algebra, mathematical optimization, and QCVV (quantum characterization, verification, and validation).
I moved to Sandia after two years of working on randomized linear algebra with Michael Mahoney and Jim Demmel (at ICSI, UC Berkeley, and LBNL). Before that, I completed a PhD in Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech under the supervision of Venkat Chandrasekaran and Adam Wierman. My undergraduate degree is from UC Berkeley in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.
Outside of my professional life, one significant fact about me is that I’m queer. More specifically, I’m gender nonconforming and bi. I’ve updated my headshot to include the pride flags for people who share some form of these experiences.
Preferred pronouns: he/him
Some Highlights
September 12, 2024. After years of development, I’m excited to announce the release of RandBLAS 1.0. RandBLAS is a C++ library for sketching in numerical linear algebra. Learn more by checking out the RandBLAS readthedocs page.
April 8, 2024. Several months ago, the YouTuber by the name of Mutual Information (DJ Rich) reached out to me expressing interest in making an educational video on RandNLA. His initial inspiration was my book on RandNLA. We met several times since then for me to explain the fields of NLA and RandNLA, and I also gave feedback on early versions of the script. I’m happy to say that the final result – Is the Future of Applied Linear Algebra .. Random? – is truly phenomenal. Please take a look!
November 14, 2023. My PhD student, Maksim Melnichenko, has posted the first piece of this thesis work on arXiv! It’s a new, slick algorithm for column-pivoted QR decomposition of tall matrices . The paper is the product of teaming up with a numerical analyst, Oleg Balabanov, for formal stability and pivot quality analysis.
August 28, 2023. Today is my first day as staff at Sandia National Labs!
June 4, 2023. Happy pride month! I’ve updated my headshot and my about me blurb to mention that I’m gender-nonconforming and bi. At some point, I’ll make a blog post on this website to explain what it means to me to be gender-nonconforming (and maybe even what that term can mean to other people).
February 22, 2023. A product of 19 months of postdoctoral work has now seen the light of day. I’m the first author of a new book on randomized linear algebra! This thing is the real deal; it’s joint work with Michael Mahoney, Jim Demmel, and Jack Dongarra, among many others.
Riley Murray 