Welcome to Aleksander Madry and Ola Svensson
© Alain Herzog
Welcome to Aleksander Madry and Ola Svensson, both Tenure Track Assistant Professors in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences IC.
Aleksander Madry: "Faster Graph Algorithms via Physics Analogies"
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Recently, there was a true emergence of massive computing tasks that involve fast processing of really huge graphs (e.g, Facebook or Twitter graphs). As a result, the need for extremely efficient graph algorithms is more pressing than ever and our traditional tools here are no longer sufficient.
One of the goals of my research is to forge a new algorithmic toolkit for this new challenge. My agenda involves, in particular, showing how electrical flows can be used to obtain fast graph algorithms.”
Aleksander Madry joined the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL in 2012, after receiving a PhD degree from MIT in 2011 and spending a year as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Microsoft Research New England Lab. His research interest lies in theoretical computer science and is focused on developing new tools for fundamental problems in algorithmic graph theory and combinatorial optimization.
His work was recognized with a variety of awards, including ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award Honorable Mention, George M. Sprowls Doctoral Dissertation Award, and Best Paper Awards at SODA 2010, STOC 2011, and FOCS 2011 conferences.
Ola Svensson: "What can be efficiently computed?"
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Suppose you wish to calculate the shortest way of visiting all the capitals of the world or perhaps the best way of placing the restaurants at EPFL so as to minimize the average walking distance….
These are two examples of central optimization problems that we do not know how well computers can solve. Our research aims to develop algorithmic and complexity-theoretic tools to answer these challenges and more generally to understand the fundamental question: what can be efficiently computed?”
Ola Svensson is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL. He received his M.Sc. from Uppsala University and his Ph.D. from Università della Svizzera italiana.
His research focuses on understanding the complexity of fundamental optimization problems by both giving efficient (approximation) algorithms and lower bounds. His most recent award is a best paper award at FOCS 2011.