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FoCS News

Welcome new theory PhD students

New theory PhD students Fall 2019We welcome four new theory PhD students who have joined the Department this fall (from left to right on the picture):

Sun 27 Oct 2019, 22:05

Dr. Igor Carboni Oliveira joins the FoCS group and the department as a new Assistant Professor

Igor Carboni OliveiraThe FoCS group and the Department of Computer Science are welcoming our new Assistant Professor, Dr. Igor Carboni Oliveira, who will be associated with the Division of Theory and Foundations (FoCS) and the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP).

Before joining Warwick, Igor held postdoctoral positions at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and at the School of Mathematics at Charles University in Prague, and was a research fellow at UC Berkeley's Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University in 2015. He is also Royal Society University Research Fellow 2019.


His research is primarily focused on the limitations of algorithms and computations, with connections to combinatorics and mathematical logic. For more information about his work and interests, please see his web page at https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~igorcarb/ 

Wed 09 Oct 2019, 12:31

EPSRC funding success for Dr Sayan Bhattacharya

Dr Sayan BhattacharyaWe are pleased to report that Dr Sayan Bhattacharya from the Theory and Foundations research theme at the Computer Science Department has received an EPSRC New Investigator Award. This will allow him to lead a research project on the theory and applications of dynamic algorithms. The approximately £250K project will aim to develop new techniques to design algorithms for fundamental optimisation problems in a setting where the input data changes over time.

The proposal was ranked top at its funding prioritisation panel, and the reviewers said:

The intended research explorations are of very high quality and will likely make a substantial impact on the research community; and possibly on the industrial sector.
Fri 04 Oct 2019, 19:52

Cryptography Meets Algorithms at the AlgoUK Workshop

AlgoUKThe Foundations of Computer Science Research Group (FoCS) recently hosted world-renowned researchers in the areas of cryptography and algorithms at the AlgoUK workshop. The event, held on September 17-18 2019, attracted over 130 participants.

Adi Shamir (Weizman Institute), co-inventor of public key cryptography and Turing Award winner, talked about his recent work on understanding the fragile behaviour of machine learning systems. Madhu Sudan (Harvard), winner of the Nevanlinna and Gödel awards, talked about new constructions of "polarizing" codes for communication. Svetla Nikova (KU Leuven) talked about recent work on achieving security against powerful adversaries.


Other speakers at the two day event were Adrià Gascon (Google/The Alan Turing Institute), Mary Cryan (Edinburgh), Paul Goldberg (Oxford), Christian Ikenmeyer (Liverpool), Christian Konrad (Bristol), Daniel Paulusma (Durham) and Thomas Sauerwald (Cambridge).

Slides and abstracts for the talks are available at the workshop website, https://algouk.wixsite.com/warwick2019.

Tue 01 Oct 2019, 10:37

Seven papers accepted to the 31st SODA

SODA 2020 logoWe are pleased to report that members of the department's Theory and Foundations research theme have had 7 papers accepted to the 31st Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, January 5-8, 2019. SODA is the premier international conference on algorithms research, and the papers are:

  • Parameterized Complexity and Approximability of Directed Odd Cycle Transversal by M. S. Ramanujan, Daniel Lokshtanov, Saket Saurabh, Meirav Zehavi
  • An Improved Algorithm for Incremental Cycle Detection and Topological Ordering in Sparse Graphs by Sayan Bhattacharya, Janardhan Kulkarni
  • Coarse-Grained Complexity for Dynamic Algorithms by Sayan Bhattacharya, Danupon Nanongkai, Thatchaphol Saranurak
  • Combinatorial Generation via Permutation Languages by Elizabeth Hartung, Hung P. Hoang, Torsten Mütze, Aaron Williams
  • On the Power of Relaxed Local Decoding Algorithms by Tom Gur, Oded Lachish
  • Relaxed Locally Correctable Codes with Nearly-Linear Block Length and Constant Query Complexity by Alessandro Chiesa, Tom Gur, Igor Shinkar
  • Sublinear time approximation of the cost of a metric k-nearest neighbor graph by Artur Czumaj, Christian Sohler
Wed 25 Sep 2019, 17:56

UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to Dr Tom Gur

Dr Tom GurWe are delighted to report that Dr Tom Gur has been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship on Foundations of classical and quantum verifiable computing, funded by £892K from UK Research and Innovation. Professor Artur Czumaj, the head of the department's Theory and Foundations research theme, has commented:

We congratulate Tom and look forward to hosting this exciting project that he will lead. This prestigious award confirms the high international standing of research at Warwick in theoretical computer science and its rich interfaces with other fields.

Fri 20 Sep 2019, 23:31

Full Professor in Algorithms and Complexity, Theoretical Computer Science, and Discrete Mathematics

The Department of Computer Science and the Department of Mathematics invite applications for a Professor in the core areas of the Theory and Foundations research group of the Department of Computer Science and of the Warwick Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP): Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Complexity, Theoretical Computer Science, or in relevant areas on the interface of Computer Science and Mathematics.

The University of Warwick is one of the top research universities in the United Kingdom, renowned for its excellence in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, home of the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP). The Departments of Computer Science and of Mathematics, and DIMAP are committed to research excellence and we seek candidates with an internationally leading research profile who will provide academic leadership.

Informal enquires can be addressed to Professor Ranko Lazic (Head of Computer Science), Professor John Greenlees (Head of Mathematics), or Professor Artur Czumaj (Head of DIMAP).

Closing date: September 1, 2019.

The official announcement (including full details of the selection criteria for this role and instructions of how to apply) can be found at https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BUB374/professor-72048-079.

Thu 25 Jul 2019, 17:05

AlgoUK Workshop in Warwick

The 4th AlgoUK workshop will take place in Warwick Sept 17 - 18, 2019.

AlgoUK is a series of UK-wide workshops, combining a UK Theory Day with a one day workshop focusing on some applications of algorithms and complexity or applied area relevant to algorithms and complexity.

Every network workshop is open to every algorithms and complexity researcher in the UK and the network itself is intended to support the whole community. There are limited funds available to assist with attendance at AlgoUK’s workshops.

The Warwick AlgoUK workshop's web page is available at https://algouk.wixsite.com/warwick2019.

Wed 24 Jul 2019, 00:05

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