The occasion of the workshop was a reflection on the remarkable career of Prasad Tetali, currently Head of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon and formerly professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Georgia Tech. The workshop highlighted this by focusing on the many research directions influenced by Tetali’s career. Speakers included researchers in Algorithms, Combinatorics and Probability, with all speakers crossing these boundaries.  Over 120 people attended the workshop, including Georgia Tech students and faculty in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Industrial Systems and Engineering and faculty, students and postdocs around the country.

See a full schedule here

"Simons Investigators are outstanding theoretical scientists who receive a stable base of research support from the foundation, enabling them to undertake the long-term study of fundamental questions."

See the School of Computer Science news story here.

The citation by the Simons foundation reads:

"Santosh Vempala has made fundamental advances in the theory of algorithms: for sampling high-dimensional distributions, computing the volume of a convex body, optimization over convex sets, randomized matrix approximation, as well as basic problems in machine learning. In many cases, these were the first polynomial-time algorithms and co-evolved with insights into high-dimensional geometry and probability. Recent highlights include proving that sufficiently sparse linear systems can be solved faster than matrix multiplication (Ax=b, the workhorse of modern computation); extending sampling methods to non-Euclidean (Riemannian) geometries to make them faster (leading to practical methods in very high dimension); pioneering techniques for algorithmic robust statistics (immune to adversarial corruptions); and developing a rigorous theory of computation and learning in the brain in a biologically plausible model (how does the mind emerge from neurons and synapses?). He continues to be puzzled by whether an unknown polytope can be learned in polytime from samples, whether its diameter is bounded by a polynomial in its description length, whether its volume can be computed in polytime without randomization, and whether the answers to these questions will be discovered by humans or by AI."

A nonlinear programming algorithm for solving semidefinite programs via low-rank factorization, Mathematical Programming Series B, 95, 329-357 (2003).

Congratulations!

Jing Yu (ACO) : Fast Distributed Algorithm Conjecture for Lovasz Local Lemma

Shen Zhang (ML):  Toward optimal multi-agent reinforcement learning: From consensus to policy evaluation

Mirabel Reid (CS): Graph Parameterization in the Assembly Model

Yiling Luo (OR) : Towards Understanding Statistical Properties of Model Parameters in Stochastic First Order Optimization Algorithms

Adam Brown (ACO) : Diverse Subset Selection

Mehrdad Ghadiri (ACO): Tall p-norm Regression in Input Sparsity Time

Qunzhi Xu (OR): Active Sequential Change-Point Detection Under Sampling Control

The selection committee comprised of Greg Blekherman, Debankur Mukherjee, Sahil Singla, Mohit Singh and Santosh Vempala. Congratulations to the winners and look forward to great research from them!

PI Santosh Vempala noted that "Optimization has been a primary inspiration for the theory of algorithms, This project targets basic optimization problems, and aims to develop new techniques while unifying continuous and discrete perspectives."

https://news.gatech.edu/2021/04/29/simple-robots-smart-algorithms-meet-bobbots

Arden Baxter (OR) : Heterogeneous Multi-Resource Allocation with Subset Demand Requests.

Zaiwei Chen (ML): A Unified Framework for Finite-Sample Analysis of Reinforcement Learning Algorithms

Yatharth Dubey (OR): On the Success of Strong Branching

He Jia(CS): Robustly Learning of Mixtures of Gaussians

Hassan Mortagy (OR): First-Order Methods for Combinatorial Structures and Machine Learning

Daan Rutten(OR): Improving Capacity Scaling With Machine Learning Predictions

Zhanzhan Zhao(CS): Mitigating Residential Segregation Through Urban Infrastructure

The selection committee this semester included Anton Bernshteyn, Santanu Dey, Xiaoming Huo, Mohit Singh, Prasad Tetali, Siva Theja and Santosh Vempala. Congratulations to the winners and look forward to great research from them!

Prasad Tetali, the lead PI on the US team remarked that "the algebra and geometry of polynomials has recently facilitated the analysis of complex problems and helped settle longstanding conjectures in algorithms, combinatorics and optimization. The full potential, particularly as an algorithmic paradigm, is yet to be realized. I am thankful for the opportunity provided by the IUSSTF grant and excited to navigate this research space, with an excellent team of computer scientists (along with their students and postdocs) from multiple top U.S. and Indian research institutions."

Timothy Duff (ACO, Math), Challenges in computational algebraic vision.

Haoming Jiang (ML ISyE), Nonparametric Regression on Low Dimensional Manifolds using Neural Networks.

Aditi Laddha (ACO CS), Better Approximation for Uniform Sparsest Cut.

Jiaming Liang (OR ISyE), First-Order Methods for Nonconvex Smooth Composite Optimization Problems.

Yuliia Lut (IE, IsyE) Improving accuracy for dynamic differential privacy with change-point detection.

Andrew McRae (ECE), Exploiting low-dimensional manifold structure with kernel methods.

Shengding Sun (ACO Math), Sparse positive semidefinite relaxations with S^{n,k}.

Mohamed El Tonbari (OR, ISyE), On Two-Stage Distributionally Robust Optimization with Binary Variables.

Liyan Xie (IE, ISyE), Distributionally Robust Nonparametric Hypothesis Testing.

Yujie Zhao (Statistics ISyE)), Homotopic Methods can Significantly Speed up the Computation of the Non-differential Optimization Problems.

The selection committee comprised of Rachel Cummings, Xiaoming Huo,  Debankur Mukherjee, Richard Peng, Mohit Singh, Prasad Tetali, Santosh Vempala, Yao Xie, and Josephine Yu.

• Minshuo Chen (ML, ISyE), advisor: Tuo Zhao (ISyE)
  • Project title: On Nonconvex Stochastic Optimization of Residual Networks
• Zongchen Chen (ACO, CS), advisor: Eric Vigoda (CS)
  • Project title: Distribution Testing for Markov Random Fields
• Daniela Hurtado Lange (OR, ISyE), advisor: Siva Theja Maguluri (ISyE)
  • Project title: Performance analysis of scheduling algorithms in a switch 
• Tianyi Liu (OR, ISyE), advisor: Enlu Zhou (ISyE)
  • Project title: Online Risk Quantification of Input Uncertainty
• Sebastian Perez-Salazar (ACO, ISyE), advisors: Mohit Singh (ISyE) and Alejandro Toriello (ISyE)
  • Project title: Dynamic allocation in the Cloud with Near-Optimal Efficiency
• Samantha Petti (ACO, Math), advisor: Santosh Vempala (CS)
  • Project title: Testing Geometric Convexity
• Youngho Yoo (ACO, Math), advisor: Robin Thomas (Math)
  • Project title: Packing zero A-paths in undirected group labelled graphs
• Wanrong Zhang (IE, ISyE), advisors: Yajun Mei (ISyE) and Rachel Cummings (ISyE)
  • Project title: Online Monitoring Streaming Data Under Privacy or Resources Constraints

The review committee was Matthieu Bloch, Wenjing Liao, Vivek Madan, Siva Theja Maguluri, Mohit Singh (chair), Santosh Vempala, Lutz Warnke, Yao Xie, and Tuo Zhao.

The workshop brought together researchers from multiple disciplines, including combinatorics, computational complexity, optimization, probability, randomized algorithms, and statistical physics. While some speakers presented recent breakthrough results, others gave overviews on specific research areas or problems.

Some research highlights:

-Daniel Dadush, a researcher at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (Netherlands) and a GT alumnus, presented A Friendly Smoothed Analysis of the Simplex Method, providing an improved and simpler analysis of the shadow vertex simplex method.

-Professor Mark Jerrum of Queen Mary University of London, a Markov chain Monte Carlo pioneer, presented A Polynomial-Time Approximation Algorithm for All-Terminal Network Reliability on all terminal reliability of undirected graphs.

-Will Perkins, a fellow at University of Birmingham (UK), presented Sphere Packings, Codes, and Kissing Numbers via Hard Core Models, proving a lower bound on the expected size of spherical code from hard cap models.

-Professor Sofya Raskhodnikova of Boston University, an expert on property testing, presented Fast Algorithms for Testing Geometric Properties, which included an introduction and survey of the field.

-Professor Virginia Vassilevska-Williams of MIT presented Towards Tight Approximation Bounds for Graph Diameter and Eccentricities about breakthrough lower bounds on estimating the diameter of a graph, assuming the strong exponential-time hypothesis.

The workshop—organized by ARC director Professor Eric Vigoda, Professor Santosh Vempala, and Professor Prasad Tetali—also intended to introduce burgeoning scholars to the larger community and foster collaboration.

“Several senior researchers were particularly impressed at the next generation of researchers, judging by the high-quality results and lectures presented,” said Tetali. “It was gratifying, as well as humbling, to see and hear of breakthrough results by former postdocs and students of Georgia Tech colleagues and their collaborators.”

• Rui Gao (ISyE), advisor: Anton Kleywegt (ISyE)
  • Project title: Wasserstein Distributional Robustness and Generalization
• Adrian Rivera Cardoso (ISyE), advisor: Huan Xu (ISyE)
  • Project title: Online Risk Averse Minimization with Bandit Feedback
• Zhehui Chen (ISyE), advisor: Tuo Zhao (ISyE)
  • Project title: Online Generalized Eigenvalue Decomposition: Min-max Formulation, Primal Dual Landscape and Efficient Optimization
• George Kerchev (Math), advisor: Christian Houdre (Math)
  • Project title: Asymptotic behavior of the length of the longest common subsequence in hidden Markov models
• Jun-Kun Wang (CS), advisor: Jacob Abernethy (CS)
  • Project title: Online Frank-Wolfe and its Application in Herding
• Uthaipon Tantipongpipat (CS), advisor: Mohit Singh (ISyE)
  • Project title: Design and Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for Optimal Design

• He Guo (Math), advisor: Lutz Warnke (Math)
  • Project title: Semi-Random Algorithmic Constructions

October 30, 2017

ARC11 program available here.

The Algorithms and Randomness Center (ARC) and the Institute for Information Security and Privacy are hosting Blum who will present a lecture titled, “Human Computation with an Application to Passwords.” The event begins at 11 a.m. in room 1443 of the Klaus Building.

During his presentation Blum, who serves as the Bruce Nelson Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, will explore documented facets of long- and short-term human memory that have implications on what people can and cannot remember.

With this, Blum will then share his insights into how people – working only in their minds –can “transform website names into random-looking passwords that are provably hard to forge.” Although creating and remembering online passwords is a focus, Blum’s notions also apply to other problems that people might want to solve in their heads such as solutions for speed chess, crossword puzzles, cryptographic problems, and other analytical challenges.

Blum will greet attendees prior to the lecture during a 30-minute reception, which begins at 10:30 a.m.

Blum is recognized as a pioneer in the field of theoretical computer science. Throughout his career his research has focused on the single unifying theme of finding positive, practical results of living in a world where computational resources are restricted.

A member of numerous science and computing organizations, such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Blum has received several awards. These include a University of California at Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award, their Faculty Research Award, the Sigma Xi’s Monie A. Ferst Award, and the Carnegie Mellon Herbert A. Simons Teaching Award.

Blum’s lecture is part of a unique back-to-back presentation. He and Professor Lenore Blum are both speaking at Georgia Tech on October 27. Lenore Blum will present the Georgia Tech College of Computing’s annual John P. Imlay Jr. Distinguished Lecture on at 5 p.m. The Blum's are married and both are MIT alumni.

About The Institute for Information Security and Privacy

The Institute for Information Security and Privacy (IISP) at Georgia Tech connects government, industry, and academia to solve the grand challenges of cybersecurity. As a coordinating body for nine information security labs dedicated to academic and solution-oriented applied research, the IISP leverages intellectual capital from across Georgia Tech and its external partners to address vital solutions for national security, economic continuity, and individual safety.

About The Algorithms and Randomness Center

Algorithms and Randomness Center (ARC) is charged with identifying problems with natural connections to algorithms and randomness. As part of this think tank, professors, researchers and students not only devise, extend and solidify theories of algorithms, they create practical solutions for scientists here at Georgia Tech and around the world.

The Fall 2017 schedule is available here.

• Marcel Celaya (ACO PhD, Math), advisor: Josephine Yu
  • Project title: An algorithmic approach to the Gohberg-Markus-Hadwiger conjecture 
• Samira Samida (CS PhD, CS), advisor: Santosh Vempala
  • Project title: Human Computation with Application to Humanly Usable and Secure Password Methods 
• Alfredo Torrico (OR PhD, ISyE), advisor: Sebastian Pokutta
  • Project title: Online Constrained Submodular Minimization with Bandit Feedback
• Di Wu (OR PhD, ISyE), advisor: Enlu Zhou
  • Project title: Simulation Budget Allocation Under Input Uncertainty 

Thanks to the generosity of IISP, Samida's award was a joint IISP-ARC fellowship.

The authors include ACO Ph.D. students David Durfee and Sadra Yazdanbod, ARC Postdoctoral Fellow Anup Rao, and ARC Professors Richard Peng, Vijay Vazirani, and Santosh Vempala.  In addition, Jugal Garg and Ruta Mehta are former ARC Postdoctoral Fellows.  Ruta is now an Assistant Professor at UIUC.  Professor Mohit Singh was on the program committee.

The four STOC papers are the following: 

• Settling the Complexity of Leontief and PLC Exchange Markets under Exact and Approximate Equilibria

               - Jugal Garg (UIUC), Ruta Mehta (UIUC), Vijay V. Vazirani (GT), and Sadra Yazdanbod (GT)

• Geodesic Walks in Polytopes

                - Yin Tat Lee (Microsoft/Washington), Santosh S. Vempala (GT)

• Almost-Linear-Time Algorithms for Markov Chains and New Spectral Primitives for Directed Graphs 

                 - Michael B. Cohen (MIT), Jonathan Kelner (MIT),  John Peebles (MIT), Richard Peng (GT), Anup Rao (GT), Aaron Sidford (Stanford), and Adrian Vladu (MIT).

• Sampling Random Spanning Trees Faster than Matrix Multiplication  
           - David Durfee (GT), Rasmus Kyng (Yale), John Peebles (MIT), Anup B. Rao (GT), and Sushant Sachdeva (Google).

October 24, 2016.

The program for the event is available here.

Sponsored by ARC, GTISC, and CoC

Thursday, October 27, 2016

11 am: ARC-IISP Distinguished Lecture by Manuel Blum (Klaus 1443)

            Turing Award winner Manuel Blum will lecture on:       

                    Human Computation with an Application to Passwords

                           Abstract and further talk information is available here

5pm: John P. Imlay Distinguished Lecture by Lenore Blum (Howey Physics L4)

          CMU Distinguished Professor Lenore Blum will lecture on:

                     Alan Turing and the Other Theory of Computing

                           Abstract and further talk information is available here

• David Durfee (ACO PhD, CS), advisor: Richard Peng
  • Project title: Vertex Elimination Techniques and their Applications to Graph Algorithms
• Ezgi Karabulut (OR PhD, ISyE), advisors: Shabbir Ahmed and George Nemhauser 
  • Project title: Auction Algorithms for Distributed Integer Programming
• Kevin Lai (ACO PhD, CS), advisor: Santosh Vempala
  • Project title: Parameter Estimation for Mixtures of Gaussians with Adversarial Noise
• Tung Mai (ACO PhD, CS), advisor: Vijay Vazirani
  • Project title: Approximating the Non-symmetric Nash Social Welfare
•  Tianxin Tang (CS PhD, CS), advisor: Alexandra Boldyreva
  • Project title: Keyless Fuzzy Search on Encrypted Data

Thanks to the generosity of IISP, Tang's award was a joint GTISC-ARC fellowship.

Google created the PhD Fellowship program in 2009 to recognize and support outstanding graduate students doing exceptional research in Computer Science and related disciplines. Now in its eighth year, their fellowship program has supported hundreds of future faculty, industry researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs.

The authors included ACO Ph.D. students David Durfee and Kevin Lai, ARC Postdoctoral Fellows Charilaos Efthymiou and Anup Rao, and ARC Professors Richard Peng, Santosh Vempala, and Eric Vigoda.  In addition, Anand Louis is a recent graduate from Georgia Tech with an ACO PhD, and is now a postdoc at Princeton University.

The five FOCS papers are the following: 

• Accelerated Newton Iteration for Roots of Black Box Polynomials

               - Anand Louis (Princeton) and Santosh Vempala (Georgia Tech).

• Agnostic Estimation of Mean and Covariance

                - Kevin Lai (Georgia Tech), Anup Rao (Georgia Tech), and Santosh Vempala (Georgia Tech).

• Convergence of MCMC and Loopy BP in the Tree Uniqueness Region for the Hard-Core Model  

                - Charilaos Efthymiou (Georgia Tech), Thomas P. Hayes (New Mexico), Daniel Stefankovic (University of Rochester), Eric Vigoda (Georgia Tech), and Yitong Yin (Nanjing University).

• Faster Algorithms for Computing the Stationary Distribution, Simulating Random Walks, and More

                 - Michael B. Cohen (MIT), Jonathan Kelner (MIT),  John Peebles (MIT), Richard Peng (Georgia Tech), Aaron Sidford (Microsoft), and Adrian Vladu (MIT).

• On Fully Dynamic Graph Sparsifiers   

                 - Ittai Abraham (VMware), David Durfee (Georgia Tech), Ioannis Koutis (Puerto Rico), Sebastian Krinninger (Max Planck), and Richard Peng (Georgia Tech).

Hosted annually by the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of ICT and Future Planning, the Open Source Software World Challenge promotes software development and the expansion of international exchanges amongst developers. Georgia Tech’s Computing for Good Basic Laboratory Information System (C4G BLIS) received the Gold Prize and $5,000 in prize money.

C4G BLIS is open-source software used to track patient specimens and laboratory results. It replaces paper records, resulting in a sustainable, more efficient and more accountable process that also tracks workflow and generates customizable reports. More than 60 healthcare facilities or hospitals use it in Africa today.

Distinguished Professor Santosh Vempala (CS) developed C4G BLIS in collaboration with the International Laboratory Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to address persistent health care challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, partly as a research project in the College of Computing’s C4G course in 2010 and 2012. C4G BLIS launched in 2010 in Cameroon and has since expanded into Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya.

“User satisfaction is high, error rates are down, workloads are lower (hence more patients can be served) and hospital revenues are up,” Vempala said. 

C4G BLIS has undergone more than 70 revisions since its launch with students handling the updates, Vempala said. Alumnus Aishwarya Rajagopal, MS CS ’15, is still working on C4G BLIS and says it has been an extraordinary experience.

“The system is continuously evolving and there have been many challenging tasks in the last one year,” Rajagopal said. “Coming through these and having a release rolled out is a great feeling. The idea that something I do touches the lives of people in another continent thoroughly excites me.”

C4G BLIS continues to evolve based on user feedback, and other developers are joining in, from Kenya and Ghana most recently, as it is open-source software.

“To be sustainable in the long term, the development of a system like C4G BLIS has to be collaborative, involving all its stakeholder and local IT expertise,” Vempala said. “Open source is the only way to go.”

Challenges remain, but with expanding deployment throughout Africa and international recognition for C4G BLIS, the future is bright.

“Sustainable progress is hard to be certain of,” Vempala said. “But with a collaborative and ultra-configurable design, and a talent pool of inspired students, we appear to be meeting the diverse needs of hospital laboratories in Africa; so far, so good.”

Randall, the Advance Professor of Computing in the School of Computer Science, will succeed Professor Prasad Tetali as ARC director. Her appointment becomes effective May 15.

The center is charged with identifying problems with natural connections to algorithms and randomness. As part of this think tank, professors, researchers and students not only devise, extend and solidify theories of algorithms, they create practical solutions for scientists here at Georgia Tech and around the world. 

“ARC has transformed research in algorithms and randomness at Georgia Tech by building bridges across units and centers, engaging in new industrial collaborations, providing alternative perspectives on projects across the campus, and engaging students and postdoctoral researchers in novel and impactful ways,” Randall said. “There are many opportunities for strengthening these connections, both internally and externally, as we move forward.” 

Randall is a professor of theoretical computer science at Georgia Tech who studies randomized algorithms with her primary research focused on Markov chains. She also holds an adjunct appointment with the School of Mathematics.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Harvard and her doctorate in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a Sloan fellow and gave the 2009 AMS Arnold Ross Lecture at the Augusta National Science Center. In 2012, she became an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

“We are extremely excited that Dana has agreed to lead the Algorithms and Randomness Center,” said Lance Fortnow, chair of the School of Computer Science. “Not only is Dana an excellent computer scientist and mathematician, she is an outstanding mentor through her work as the Advance Professor of Computing. We are lucky to have her take this new role. 

“Dana is a recognized leader in the field of randomized algorithms where she has pioneered work in fast polynomial time algorithms with rigorous and provable performance guarantees,” said Zvi Galil, the dean of the College of Computing. “I am confident that she will effectively lead ARC in exciting and innovative directions.”

Randall expressed excitement about her new appointment but noted that past and continued successes at the center rests upon many people.

 “We owe much gratitude to the founding ARC directors, Santosh Vempala and Prasad Tetali, for their excellent leadership and boundless energy, as well as the countless faculty and students who continue to contribute to the center's success,” she said.

They are:

• Professor Mostafa Anmar, School of Computer Science
• Professor Tom Conte, School of Computer Science
• Professor Ashok Goel, School of Interactive Computing
• Professor Dana Randall, School of Computer Science
• Lecturer Jay Summet, Division of Computing Instruction
• Professor Greg Turk, School of Interactive Computing

The Class of 1940 Award is given annually to honor teachers with exceptional response rates and scores on the Course-Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS). Current award recipients were evaluated during the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 semesters. Recipients must have had a class response rate of at least 85 percent along with near-perfect evaluation scores of teaching effectiveness. Fewer than 40 teachers across Georgia Tech receive the award annually.

All recipients will be formally honored in March at CETL’s annual Celebrating Teaching Day.

The position is for up to two years, with a start date between July 1 and September 1, 2016. There is no teaching requirement, but the postdoc is encouraged to lead a research seminar. Interested candidates should send a CV, research statement, and request 3 letters of recommendation be sent to:  arc-postdoc@cc.gatech.edu

Applications should be received by December 10, 2015 for full consideration.  URL: http://arc.gatech.edu/hg/item/462391

It is a triumphant finish in a challenging competition often referred to as the “World’s Smartest Trophy.” The contest asks teams to solve complex algorithms in less than five hours on a single computer. It was a race against the clock in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance.

Competing for Georgia Tech were Zhongtian Jiang and Yijie Wang, undergraduates in computer science, and Hanjun Dai, masters student in computer science. They were led by coach Ben Cousins, a PhD candidate in algorithms, combinatorics and optimization. The team was joined by Troy Peace and Alyshia Jackson from the Office of Outreach, Enrollment and Community.

“We are so proud of this team and their tremendous advancement in an incredibly difficult competition,” said Dean Zvi Galil. “This was Georgia Tech’s best performance in a decade and it is further evidence of the passion for problem solving that our students hold.”

Getting to the world finals in Marrakech came with its own pressure. Georgia Tech competed in regional North American contests to advance. In all, more than 38,160 students from 2,534 universities in 101 countries across six continents sought to reach the world finals. Few did, and the competition in Morocco represented the best of the best.

The final results left Georgia Tech tied with Carnegie Mellon, Harvard University, University of California at Los Angeles and University of Southern California. Only two other teams from North America performed better -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California at Berkeley. Harvard was the last North American team to crack into the top 10 in 2012. Georgia Tech received honorable mentions in 2012, 2008, 2006 and 2005.

The top 12 teams in 2015 received medals.

• St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (GOLD, 2015 WORLD CHAMPION)
• Moscow State University (GOLD, 2^nd Place)
• The University of Tokyo (GOLD, 3^rd Place)
• Tsinghua University (GOLD, 4^th Place)
• Peking University (SILVER, 5^th Place)
• University of California at Berkeley (SILVER, 6^th Place)
• University of Zagreb (SILVER, 7^th Place)
• Charles University in Prague (SILVER, 8^th Place)
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University (BRONZE, 9^th Place)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BRONZE, 10^th Place)
• Korea University (BRONZE, 11^th, Place)
• University of Warsaw (BRONZE, 12^th Place)

For a full list of teams, visit: http://icpc.baylor.edu/worldfinals/teams.

http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/like-a-kardashian-only-for-geeks/njZL2/?icmp=ajc_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_ajcstubtomyajcpremium#9311f650.3901895.735596

• Gustavo Angulo, (Advisors : Shabbir Ahmed and Santanu S. Dey, ISYE ) “A polyhedral study of all-different polytopes"
•  Spencer Backman, (Advisor: Matt Baker, Math) "A Complex Valued  Hypergraph Laplachain"
• Andreas Galanis, (Advisor: Eric Vigoda, CS) "Hardness of Approximately Counting Colorings"
• Sara Krehbiel, (Advisor:  Chris Peikert, CS) "Paying for Privacy"
• Robert Krone, (Advisor: Anton Leykin, ISYE) “Algorithms for Equivariant Ideals and Varieties”
• Andrew Massimino, (Advisor:  Mark Davenport) “Constrained Adaptive Sensing"
• Sarah Miracle, (Advisor: Dana Randall, CS and Math) “Markov Chains to Model Segregation and Biased Surfaces"
• Aurko Roy, (Advisor:  Santosh Vempala CS and ISYE) "Learning a Polytope"

• Cristóbal Guzmán - Advisor - Arkadi Nemirovski, School of ISYE " A new model for image regularization"
• Chun-Hung Liu - Advisor - Robin Thomas, School of Math "Well-quasi-ordering graphs by the immersion relation"
• Diego Morán - Advisor - Santanu Dey, School of ISYE "On cutting planes for convex mixed-integer programs"
• Ioannis Panageas - Advisors -  Prasad Tetali (Math & CS), Frank Dellaert (IC) " Preconditioning in non-Laplacian case"
• Linwei Xin - Advisors - David Goldberg, Alexander Shapiro"Moment Convergence Rate in Stochastic Optimization"

The ARC Committee consisting of Santosh Vempala, (chair), CS and ISYE, Gregory Blekherman, Math, Santanu Dey, ISYE, David Goldberg, ISYE  and Dana Randall, CS and Math (Adjunct) announced the winners of ARC Fellowships for Fall 2012. Many thanks to the committee members for their hard work. Congratulations to the winners and all the best in their research efforts! The recipients, and their advisors, are:

• Prateek Bhakta, CS/ACO, (Mentor: Dana Randall, CS and Math)  “Mixing Times of the Schelling Segregation Model and Biased Permutations”
• Arindam Khan, CS, (Mentors:  Prof. Prasad Tetali, CS and Math and Prof. Henrik I. Christensen, IC) “Algorithms for 3-D Geometric Bin Packing”
• Anand Louis, CS (Mentor:  Prasad Tetali, CS and Math and Prof. Santosh Vempala, CS) “A New Approach Towards Graph Coloring”
• Farbod Shokrieh, CS (Mentor: Matt Baker, Math)  “Random Basis Algorithm  for Regular Matroids"

• Karthik Chandrasekaran, CS/ACO, (Mentor: Santosh Vempala, CS)  “The Complexity of the Cutting Plane Method”
• Nate Chenette, CS, (Mentor: Sasha Boldyreva, CS) “Efficient Fuzzy-Searchable Encryption”
• Andreas Galanis, CS (Mentor: Eric Vigoda, CS) “Phase Transitions in the Complexity of Counting”
• Jiajin Yu, CS (Mentor: Ozlem Ergun, ISYE)  “Atomic Congestion Games with Taxes on Resources”