hartline-jasonJason Hartline.  Prof. Hartline’s research introduces design and analysis methodologies from computer science to understand and improve outcomes of economic systems. Optimal behaviour and outcomes in complex environments are complex and, therefore, should not be expected; instead, the theory of approximation can show that simple and natural behaviours are approximately optimal in complex environments. This approach is applied to auction theory and mechanism design in his graduate textbook Mechanism Design and Approximation which is under preparation.

 

aravind_headshotAravindan Vijayaraghavan. Prof. Vijayaraghavan’s research interests are broadly on the algorithmic foundations of problems in machine learning, data science,  combinatorial optimization, and more recently, in quantum information. His research often uses paradigms that go beyond worst-case analysis like smoothed analysis, average-case analysis and instance stability to obtain much better algorithmic guarantees than we can obtain in the worst-case.

 

kostya-ph25Konstantin Makarychev. Prof. Makarychev is a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. He is interested in designing efficient algorithms for computationally hard problems, and introducing new core techniques and design general principles for developing and analyzing algorithms that work in theory and practice. His research interests include approximation algorithms, beyond worst-case analysis, theory of machine learning, and applications of high-dimensional geometry in computer science.

 

Samir Khuller. Prof. Khuller is a Professor of Computer Science and the Peter and Adrienne Barris Chair of Computer Science at Northwestern University. He is an expert in graph algorithms, discrete optimization, and scheduling, and has published nearly 200 journal and conference papers, as well as several book chapters. He was named a 2022 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow “for contributions to algorithm design with real-world implications and for mentoring and community-building” and also a 2021 European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) Fellow “for his fundamental contributions to combinatorial approximation algorithms“.

 

wang-xiaoXiao Wang. Prof. Wang is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. His research interests include computer security, privacy, and cryptography. Recently, he is mainly working on practical multi-party computation, zero-knowledge proofs, oblivious RAM, and post-quantum cryptography. He likes building real systems based on advanced cryptographic techniques and pushing their limits of practicality.

 

golub-ben
Ben Golub.  Prof. Golub is a Professor of Economics and (by courtesy) Computer Science. His research focuses on the theory of social and economic networks, including the dynamics of learning and influence, targeting interventions for behavior change, and systemic risk and fragility in financial and production systems. He is interested in methods from probability theory, including random graphs and percolation, as well as the foundations and statistics of network centrality measures. He has served as an Associate Editor of Theoretical Economics and the Journal of Economic Theory.

 

Annie Liang. Prof. Liang is the Assistant Professor of Economics and (by courtesy) Computer Science. Her work focuses on economic theory and the application of machine learning techniques in the social sciences. She has studied the dynamics of strategic information acquisition, as well as the use of machine learning to evaluate and improve economic models.

 

Miklos Z. Racz. Prof. Racz is an Assistant Professor in Statistics and Data Science with a joint appointment in Computer Science. He is joining us from Princeton University, where he is an assistant professor in the ORFE department. He received his PhD in Statistics from UC Berkeley and was then a postdoc in the Theory Group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. Miki’s research interests lie broadly at the interface of probability, statistics, computer science, and information theory. Miki’s research and teaching has been recognized by Princeton’s Howard B. Wentz, Jr. Junior Faculty Award, a Princeton SEAS Innovation Award, and an Excellence in Teaching Award.

 

Edith Elkind is a GinnyEdith Elkind Rometty Professor of Computer Science. She is interested in algorithms for collective decision making, including cooperative games, voting (in particular multiwinner voting and participatory budgeting) and fair division, as well as their applications to the foundations of AI. She is the recipient of the 2023 ACM SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award and a Fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence.

 

Dmitrii (Dima) Pasechnik is a Research Professor of Computer Science. He is interested in mathematical foundations of computer algebra and symbolic computing, in implementation of software for pure and applied mathematics, and computer-aided verification of mathematics. On his more mathematical side he works in real algebraic geometry, group theory, sums of squares techniques in nonlinear optimization and approximation algorithms, and combinatorics. He is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Software for Algebra and Geometry, and active contributor to SageMath and GAP computer algebra systems.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dmitrii Avdiukhin

Dmitrii Avdiukhin. Dmitrii joined the Theory group in September 2023, after receiving a Ph.D. from Indiana University, advised by Grigory Yaroslavtsev. He is broadly interested in approximation algorithms, learning theory, and theoretical foundations of machine learning, in particular continuous optimization, generalization, and hierarchical clustering.

 

Suprovat Ghoshal. Dr. Ghoshal’s primary research interests are in Hardness of Approximation and Computational Learning Theory. He is also interested in Error Correcting Codes, Combinatorics and Geometry. Prior to joining Northwestern, he was a research associate at U.Mich hosted by Euiwoong Lee. He received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, advised by Arnab Bhattacharyya and Siddharth Barman.

Affiliated Faculty

Visiting Faculty

Professor Emeritus

Past Members

  • Nicole Immorlica, Assistant Prof., 2008-2013, now Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England
  • Azarakhsh Malekian Postdoc, 2010-2011, now Associate Prof. at University of Toronto, Rotman
  • Anindya De, Assistant Prof., 2015-2018, Adjunct Assistant Prof., 2019-2021, now Associate Prof. at University of Pennsylvania
  • Huck Bennett, Postdoc, 2017-2019, now Assistant Prof. at CU Boulder
  • Xue Chen, Postdoc, 2018-2020, now Assistant Prof. at University of Science and Technology of China
  • Hedyah Beyhaghi, Postdoc, 2019-2021, now Assistant Prof. at University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Shravas Rao, Postdoc, 2019-2022, now Assistant Prof. at Portland State University
  • Jinshuo Dong, Postdoc, 2020-2024, now Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University
  • Sheng Yang, Postdoc, 2021-2022, now Huawei
  • Vaggos Chatziafratis, Postdoc, Fall 2021, now Assistant Prof. at UC Santa Cruz
  • Sami Davies, Postdoc, now Research Scientist at Simons Institute and Berkeley
  • Quanquan C. Liu. Postdoc, now Assistant Prof. at Yale University
  • Eric Evert. Postdoc, now Assistant Prof. at Florida State University
  • Don Stull. Postdoc, now Dickson Instructor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Chicago