I’m a theory researcher at the Alignment Research Center. I graduated from my PhD in the Stanford theory group (advised by Li‑Yang Tan) in 2025. Before that, I was a Master’s student in Columbia’s theory group, and I did my undergrad at UCLouvain in Belgium.

In the past, my research focus was in computational complexity (in particular circuit lower bounds). Since 2023 I’ve been reorienting towards slightly more useful things, which has involved some learning theory and algorithms.

I occasionally write learning notes about things I learn in CS theory and math.

Email: vc.lecomte@gmail.com (also victor@alignment.org)
Twitter: @vclecomte

Selected publications

Backdoor defense, learnability and obfuscation
 with Paul Christiano, Jacob Hilton and Mark Xu
 ITCS 2025 — talk

The composition complexity of majority
 with Prasanna Ramakrishnan and Li-Yang Tan
 CCC 2022 — talk (bonus), slides (bonus)

Sharper bounds on the Fourier concentration of DNFs
 with Li-Yang Tan
 FOCS 2021 — talk, slides

Settling the relationship between Wilber’s bounds for dynamic optimality
 with Omri Weinstein
 ESA 2020 — talk, slides