Carnegie Mellon University has a strong and diverse group in Algorithms and Complexity Theory. The goals of the group are, broadly speaking, to provide a mathematical understanding of fundamental issues in Computer Science, and to use this understanding to produce better algorithms, protocols, and systems, as well as identify the inherent limitations of efficient computation. Research interests include data structures, algorithm design, complexity theory, coding theory, parallel algorithms and languages, machine learning theory, cryptography and security, computational aspects of economics, online algorithms, and scientific computing.

The faculty routinely offer advanced courses on various topics in the frontier of research in theoretical computer science (there are typically 2-3 such courses every semester). We also have a very active schedule of research seminars, including a weekly theory seminar, ACO seminar, and theory lunch (which is run by our graduate students): see the seminars' page for the schedule.

Our Algorithms and Complexity group maintains strong ties to other areas, such as computer systems, programming languages, and artificial intelligence, and we welcome students who have a combination of theoretical and application-oriented research interests. See also the ACO Program home page for the inter-disciplinary program in Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization.

We are accepting applications for a postdoc position! Click on the Openings link below for details.

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Faculty
Parallel algorithms and languages.

Machine learning, approximation and on-line algorithms, AI planning.

Real-number models of computation.

Cryptography, Complexity Theory, Program Checking.

Average case analysis of algorithms, random graphs, combinatorics.

Approximation algorithms, metric embeddings, network algorithms.

Coding theory, Approximation Algorithms and Hardness of Approximations, Complexity Theory.

Scheduling theory, queuing theory, networks, heavy-tailed analysis.

Machine learning and high dimensional data analysis, statistical learning theory.

Algorithm design, spectral graph theory, computational geometry, topological inference, parallel algorithms, scientific computing.

Complexity Theory, Algorithms.

Approximation algorithms, combinatorial optimization, computational biology.

Complexity theory, cryptography, combinatorics.

Data structures, algorithms, parsing.

Machine learning, high-dimensional inference, sparse coding, evolving graphs, convex optimization.

Affiliated Faculty & Friends
Human Computation.

Combinatorics, Graph theory, Random graphs.

Combinatorial optimization, Graph theory, integer programming.

Theory of security, privacy and cryptography.

Massive data sets, parallel computation, electronic commerce.

Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Randomness.

Algorithmic game theory, Computational social choice

Algorithms, especially for Scheduling and Power management

Mechanism Design, Game Theory, Auctions.

Computational Biology.

Theory of Computation, symbolic computation.

Postdocs and Visitors
coding theory and TCS, derandomization and explicit constructions, PCPs and inapproximability

Algorithms and Complexity

Algorithms for massive data sets, sublinear-time algorithms, property testing, streaming, graph algorithms, and approximation algorithms

Parallel and Approximation Algorithms

Students
Machine learning theory

Complexity Theory

Approximation Algorithms

Network Science

Machine learning theory

Parallel algorithms

Complexity theory

Probabilistic combinatorics, Social networks, Computational biology, Machine learning

Complexity, Algorithms

Alumni
Carnegie Mellon (postdoc)

Don Sheehy (2011)
INRIA (Paris)

Varun Gupta (2011)
University of Chicago School of Business and Google Research

Mike Dinitz (2010)
Weizmann Institute (postdoc)

Aaron Roth (2010)
U.Penn

Yi Wu (2010)
IBM Almaden (postdoc)

Todd Phillips (2009)
Google

David Abraham (2009)
Google

Viswanath Nagarajan (2009) (ACO Tepper)
IBM T.J.Watson Research Center

Caltech

Karl Wimmer (2009) (ACO Math)
Duquesne University

Pall Melsted (2009) (ACO Math)

Prasad Chebolu (2009) (ACO Math)
Liverpool University (postdoc)

Howard University

Maverick Woo (2009)

Nina Balcan (2008)
Georgia Tech.

Barbara Anthony (2008) (ACO Math)
Southwestern University

AT&T Research

Caltech (postdoc)

Vineet Goyal (2008) (ACO Tepper)
MIT (postdoc)

Mohit Singh (2008) (ACO Tepper)
McGill University

Facebook

IAS (postdoc)

Ryan Williams (2007)
IBM Almaden (Raviv Fellow)

Benoit Hudson (2007)
TTI Chicago

Hubert Chan (2007) (CS & ACO)
University of Hong Kong

Adam Weirman (2007)
CalTech

CMU (postdoc)

Google

Lea Kissner (2006)
Google

Konstantin Andreev (2006) (ACO Math)
Cygma Financial

Google (Pittsburgh)

Abie Flaxman (2006) (ACO Math)
University of Washington (postdoc)

Juan Vera (2006) (ACO Math)
University of Waterloo

Dan Blandford (2005)
Google

Shuchi Chawla (2005)
University of Wisconsin (Madison)

Google

Luis von Ahn (2005)
Carnegie Mellon

Umut Acar (2004)
TTI Chicago

Nick Hopper (2004)
University of Minnesota

Amitabh Sinha (2004) (ACO Tepper)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)

Ke Yang (2004)
Google

Brown University (postdoc)

Nikhil Bansal (2003)
IBM T.J.Watson Research Center

Jochen Konemann (2003) (ACO Tepper)
University of Waterloo

Ojas Parekh (2003) (ACO Tepper)
Emory University

John Langford (2002)
Yahoo Research (NYC)

Adam Kalai (2001)
Microsoft Research (New England)

Carl Burch (2000)
Hendrix College

Goran Konjevod (2000) (ACO Tepper)
Arizona State University

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Andrea Richa (1998)
Arizona State University

Endeca (Chief Scientist)

Yuri Smirnov (1997)
Akonite

Georgia Tech

Dafna Talmor (1997)
Intel

University of California (Berkeley)

Yahoo Research

Keith Gremban (1996)

Anja Feldmann (1995)
Technical University of Berlin

NASA Langley Research Center

Jeff Jackson (1995)
Duquesne University

Jiri Sgall (1994)
Charles University (Prague)

Mike Molloy (1994) (ACO Math)
University of Toronto

James Aspnes (1992)
Yale University

AT&T Research

Colin Cooper (1989) (ACO Math)
King's College (London)

Lyle McGeoch (1987)
Amherst College

Amherst College

Andrew Appel (1985)
Princeton University

University of Chicago and IIT Bombay

MIT

University of Southern California

Georgia Tech.

Graduate Theory Courses scheduled for Fall 2011
Previous Semester Theory Courses
Useful Theory-related Links
talks of interest to the algorithms and complexity crowd

Wednesdays at noon

Thursday afternoons

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lists of papers

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowship in Theoretical Computer Science

The Simons Foundation has awarded Carnegie Mellon a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Theoretical Computer Science for the two-year period Fall 2012 through Summer 2014. Applicants must have received a PhD in the academic year immediately preceding the fellowship (i.e. 2011-2012). Postdoctoral Fellows will have opportunity to work with all members of the Algorithms and Complexity group at CMU. In addition to salary, fellows will receive a $7,000/year travel/equipment research budget.

Applications (CV and research statement) as well as recommendation letters should be sent to Marilyn Walgora at mwalgora [at] cs.cmu.edu. Please include the words "Simons Postdoctoral Fellowship" in the header.

For full consideration, applications should be received by January 31, 2012.