Bilal A. Shaw

"What is that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea -- to discover a great thought -- an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain -- plow had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. To be the first -- that is the idea. To do something, say something, see something, before any body else -- these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial." (Mark Twain)

I currently work as head-of-data-science for the Communication Solutions (ComSol) business unit within TransUnion (TU).  We are utilizing best-in-class phone-based data within the U.S. and it's neighboring territories to build state-of-the-art robocall mitigation ML/AI models.  Prior to leading data-science for ComSol, I served as the lead for Digital Identity Risk (DIR), InBound Authentication (IBA), and IP Intelligence (IPI) products at TransUnion for over 5 years.       

In the past I have worked as a scientist in the Analytics department at ID Analytics in San Diego (B2B) and at Headspace in Santa Monica (B2C).  I've also worked at OpenX (B2B) in Pasadena in digital advertising.  

In August of 2010, I completed my doctoral degree in quantum information science from the computer science department at the University of Southern California under the supervision of Dr. Todd A. Brun. I have simulated quantum error-correcting codes under realistic physical noise models and analyzed their performance through various channels. Dr. Todd Brun and Dr. Ruediger Schack co-authored a software package to simulate quantum trajectory equations. I later extended the software to include quantum operations with density matrices and a routine that solves the full Lindbladian master equation. If you would like to use the software to simulate interesting quantum information processing tasks, please feel free to e-mail me. A copy of the QIP software can be found here. It is freely available under GNU General Public License.

I have worked on some aspects of information hiding using quantum information processing tools. Todd and I developed a general theory of quantum steganography and we also showed how one could hide quantum information the five-qubit code also sometimes known as the Perfect Code.  

I continue to immerse myself in quantum computing.  I find it incredible that when I joined the field as a graduate student there were just a handful research papers in the field and no one really knew how to build a fully scalable fault-tolerant quantum computer.  With start-ups like Rigetti Computing, Quantum Circuits and others, and with big companies like IBM, Google, and Microsoft backing research in viable quantum computers, I hope we get to witness the utility of these nascent NISQ-style computers in solving commercial problems.  Quantum information and computing has been a long-term intellectual passion of mine.  Most recently I've been devoting my time to understanding quantum machine learning (QML), and its potential utility for business problems at TU. 

During my undergraduate years and while working on my Masters degree in Computer Science, I worked in the Laboratory for Molecular Science with Dr. Leonard Adleman on self-assembly.  Len has been an enduring influence in my intellectual life.  During this time I learned a lot from him, not just in acquiring technical skills, but also in how to approach problems, and the importance of having a strong work ethic.  I spent time working alongside him and my fellow researchers in DNA-based nanotechnology and computing.  I worked four years in his lab executing molecular biology based experiments.  This resulted in two solid publications with him. 

I maintain a blog where in the past I have talked about my cultural and scientific escapades in Los Angeles.  You can read the blog here.  I am working on reviving the blog by adding some articles there.  Most of my recent musings have been on my LinkedIn page. 

When I am not working on computer science I enjoy hiking, yoga, writing poetry, sketching, and going to as many live music events around Los Angeles as time can permit.