David G. M. Mitchell

Five papers accepted to IEEE Quantum Week — the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE):

• "Reinforcement-Learning-Guided Multi-Branch Decoding of Quantum LDPC Codes"
• "Q-Learning Search over Voltage-Labeled Covers for Weight-Six Bivariate-Bicycle Quantum LDPC Codes"
• "Collision-Voltage Design of Directional Covers for Bivariate Bicycle Quantum LDPC Codes"
• "Quaternary Partial-Decimation Soft-Hard BPGD for Quantum LDPC Codes"
• "High-Performance Reinforcement-Learned Belief-Propagation Decoding of Quantum LDPC Codes"

Congratulations to all the students and postdocs.

Two papers accepted to the IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW):

• "Lifted-Product QLDPC Codes in the Polynomial Domain"
• "Learning to Decode Quantum LDPC Codes via Cluster-Based Sequential Belief Propagation"

Enjoyed delivering the tutorial, "Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes: Introduction and Design Considerations," at NASIT 2026.

Had a great week co-organizing the 2026 IEEE North American School of Information Theory — the week was filled with fantastic tutorials spanning information theory and wonderful student participation.

Three papers published from the group at the IEEE International Conference on Communications:

• "Constructing Quantum Convolutional Codes via Difference Triangle Sets"
• "Sequential BP-based Decoding of QLDPC Codes"
• "Dynamic Parameter Scheduling in Soft-Hard BPGD for Lossy Source Coding"

Wrapped up this semester's LEGO Engineering Club with 40 elementary and middle school kids — this session's theme was archaeology, with teams building and programming inventions (including a ground-penetrating radar and communications hub), then demoing and presenting their projects to parents. Running it again this fall!

Traveling to present a keynote talk, "Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes: Introduction and Design Considerations," at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) workshop on combinatorial coding theory.

Paper, "Design Considerations for Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes Under Decoding Latency Constraints," accepted for publication in IEEE BITS the Information Theory Magazine.

Traveling to the Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA) to present our work on learning to decode quantum LDPC codes.

New paper, "Structural Analysis of Generalized Quasi-Cyclic LDPC Codes," published in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

Had a great day representing the College of Engineering at the Las Cruces Spooky Science Festival — thanks to Cabe Robertson and Yair Barraza for explaining our projects to over 600 future engineers.

At the International Telemetering Conference with Cabe Robertson and Andrew Cummins — our paper on post-quantum cryptography for aeronautical telemetry won second place student paper award.

Awarded supplemental NSF funding for our CAREER project, investigating how error-correcting codes improve calibrated uncertainty in generative AI models.

New paper, "Enhancing Belief Propagation Decoding of Polar Codes: A Reinforcement Learning Approach," published in IEEE Communications Letters.

US Patent 12,334,954 B1 issued for a threshold-based min-sum algorithm lowering error floors of quantized LDPC decoders.