On December 9-10, the Northwestern CS Theory Group and the Institute for Data, Econometrics, Algorithms, and Learning (IDEAL) co-hosted the 2021 Junior Theorists Workshop.

Sami Davies and Sheng Yang, postdoctoral scholars in computer science at Northwestern Engineering, organized the virtual workshop focused on the work and perspectives of junior researchers in theoretical computer science.Davies is a Computing Innovation Fellow and studies beyond worst-case analysis with IDEAL. She earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Washington, an MS in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BS in mathematical sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.

Yang investigates graph algorithms, discrete optimization, and stochastic optimization and is focused on classical and emerging, cloud-based scheduling problems. He earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and BE in computer science from Tsinghua University.”This workshop allows our graduate students and postdocs to learn from some of the most talented junior researchers across the globe and enables new collaborations in theoretical computer science,” said Samir Khuller, Peter and Adrienne Barris Chair of Computer Science. “The speakers were chosen via an extremely competitive process from a long and distinguished list of nominees.”

On the first day of the event, guest speakers presented on topics including dynamic data structures, sublinear-time algorithms and arboricity, multidimensional packing problems, approximation algorithm for metric traveling salesman problem, smoothed analysis of approximate diagonalization, and approximating constraint satisfaction problems.

Day 1 presenters:

• Jess Banks, PhD candidate in mathematics at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and University of California, Berkeley
• Chi-Ning Chou, PhD student in the theory of computation group at Harvard University
• Talya Eden, postdoctoral fellow at the Foundations of Data Science Institute, jointly affiliated with Boston University and MIT
• Maximilian Probst Gutenberg, postdoctoral fellow in computer science at ETH Zürich
• Nathan Klein, PhD student in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington
• Sai Sandeep Pallerla, PhD student in algorithms and complexity theory at Carnegie Mellon University

In addition, Yingkai Li, a PhD student in computer science at Northwestern Engineering, and Shravas Rao, postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Northwestern Engineering, presented Northwestern spotlight talks.

Li is interested in information design, game theory, and online algorithms. He discussed an endogenous information mechanism design model in which the designer’s choices about the algorithm directs how much and what type of information the agents choose to acquire.

Rao studies theoretical computer science and presented his work related to restrictions on the slice theorem. He is interested in researching the relationship between the slice and the concept of high dimensional expanders.

“Outstanding junior researchers from all areas of theoretical computer science spoke about their exciting research and presented novel algorithms, techniques, and data structures to the workshop attendees,” said Konstantin Makarychev, professor of computer science in Northwestern Engineering.

The second day of the workshop featured discussions on algorithms for uniformly sampling convex bodies, approximate solvers for linear programs based on interior-point methods, barriers to proving depth-separation results in neural networks, bilateral trade, difference estimators for data stream computation, and universal estimators for symmetric property estimation.

Day 2 presenters:

• Aditi Laddha, PhD student in algorithms, combinatorics, and optimization at Georgia Institute of Technology
• Bento Natura, PhD student in mathematics at the London School of Economics
• Kiran Shiragur, PhD student in management science and engineering, Stanford University
• Gal Vardi, postdoctoral fellow in computer science and applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science
• Kangning Wang, PhD student in computer science at Duke University
• Samson Zhou, postdoctoral researcher in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University

“Postdocs Sami Davies and Sheng Yang, did a masterful job in organizing the event, introducing speakers and assigning session chairs, and making a wonderful and relaxed schedule,” Khuller said.

Jason Hartline, professor of computer science, and Aravindan Vijayaraghavan, associate professor of computer science in Northwestern Engineering, are co-directors of IDEAL and co-organize the CS Theory Group Quarterly Theory Workshop series. IDEAL is an interdisciplinary, collaborative team of researchers from Northwestern, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, and the University of Chicago studying the foundations of data science.

Additional CS Theory Group members include:

• Benjamin Golub, associate professor of computer science and of economics at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
• Samir Khuller, Peter and Adrienne Barris Chair of Computer Science
• Annie Liang, Karr Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science and of economics at Weinberg
• Konstantin Makarychev, professor of computer science
• Xiao Wang, assistant professor of computer science

IDEAL is a Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) institute supported by the National Science Foundation under award CCF 1934931.

article link: https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/computer-science/news-events/news/articles/2022/showcasing-the-work-and-perspectives-of-early-career-researchers.html