Thesis Title Algorithms and Resource Requirements for Fundamental Problems

R.RYAN WILLIAMS
Computer Science Department,Wean Hall4212
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh,PA15213
Phone:412-268-3047
Email:ryanw@
EDUCATION
•Carnegie Mellon University(Pittsburgh,PA)
Ph.D.in Computer Science,August2007.
Thesis Title:Algorithms and Resource Requirements for Fundamental Problems
Advisor:Manuel Blum
•Cornell University(Ithaca,NY)
Master of Engineering in Computer Science,2002
Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Mathematics with Honors,2001.
HONORS
•Ronald Book Prize for Best Student Paper from the IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity:
*for“Time-Space Tradeoffs for Counting NP Solutions Modulo Integers,”2007.
*for“Better Time-Space Lower Bounds for SAT and Related Problems,”2005.
•Best Student Paper Award from the European Association for Theoretical CS: *for“A New Algorithm For Optimal Constraint Satisfaction And Its Implications,”
awarded at ICALP2004.
•Highest ranked paper at SPAA2005:“Parallelizing Time With Polynomial Circuits”
•National Science Foundation Research Fellowship,2001-2004.
•Cornell Computer Science Prize for Academic Excellence,2001.
•Telluride Association Residential Scholarship,Cornell2000-2002.Cornell Alumni Federation Scholarship,1998-2001.John McMullen Dean’s Scholar,Cornell1997-1998.
POSITIONS HELD
•Postdoctoral Researcher,Carnegie Mellon,September2007to Present.
•Research Intern in the Theory Group,Microsoft Research(Redmond),Summer2005.
Mentor:Uriel Feige.
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•Graduate Mentor,NSF ALADDIN REU,Carnegie Mellon,Summer2004.
Student:Brendan Juba.
•Graduate Research Assistant,Carnegie Mellon,Fall2002to August2007.
•Assistant Researcher,Computer Science Department,Cornell University,Summer2002.
Supervisors:Carla Gomes and Bart Selman.
•Undergraduate Researcher,DIMACS,Rutgers University,Summer2000.
Mentor:Dieter van Melkebeek.
•Programmer,Intergraph Corporation,Summer1998.
TEACHING
•Lecturer(with M.Blum and S.Rudich)in15-859P Theoretical Cryptography(grad course), Fall2007.
•TA(Teaching Assistant)for15-503/15-859P Theoretical Cryptography(combined undergrad and grad course),Spring2006.Professors:Manuel Blum and Steven Rudich.
•TA for15-855Computational Complexity Theory,Carnegie Mellon,Fall2004.Professors: Steven Rudich and Avrim Blum.
•TA for15-845Graduate Algorithms,Carnegie Mellon,Spring2003.Professor:Manuel Blum.
•TA for COMS280Discrete Structures,Cornell,Fall2001.Professor:Sergei Artemov.
•TA for COMS381Theory of Computing,Cornell,Fall2001.Professor:Sergei Artemov. Undergraduate Advisees
•Jeremiah Blocki,currently a junior at CMU.
•Brendan Meeder,Honors Thesis in Mathematics,CMU’07.
Soon to be a PhD student at CMU.(Advised with Manuel Blum)
•Brendan Juba,Honors Thesis in Mathematics,CMU’05.
Currently:PhD student at MIT.(Advised with Manuel Blum)
•David Charlton,Honors Thesis in Computer Science,CMU’04.
Currently:PhD student at Boston University.(Advised with Manuel Blum)
SER VICE
•Co-Organizer for MSR-CMU MindSwap Workshop on Privacy,Fall2007.
•Program Committee Member,AAAI2006.
•CMU CSD Speaker’s Club,2006-Present.
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•Reviewer for:APPROX-RANDOM,STOC,FOCS,SODA,PODS,LATIN,FSTTCS,ESA, CP,SIAM Journal on Computing,Journal of Computational Complexity,Theoretical Com-puter Science,Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence,Information and Computa-tion,etc.
•Student Volunteer for FOCS’05in Pittsburgh.
•Member of DEC-5and FreeCSD(CMU SCS Student Organizations)2004-2006.
BOOK CHAPTERS
•R.Williams.Maximum2-satisfiability.In Encyclopedia of Algorithms(Springer),to appear.
•C.Gomes and R.Williams.Approximation Algorithms.In Search Methodologies:Introduc-tory Tutorials in Optimization and Decision Support Techniques,E.Burke and G.Kendall (eds.),Springer,2005.
PUBLICATIONS AND WORKING PAPERS
1.R.Williams.Non-Linear Time Lower Bounds for Quantified Boolean Formulas.Submitted.
2.R.Williams.Automated Proofs of Time Lower Bounds.Submitted.
3.G.Blelloch,V.Vassilevska,and R.Williams.A New Combinatorial Approach to Sparse
Graph Problems.Submitted.
4.R.Williams.A Hybrid Algorithm for Maximum Independent Set.Manuscript.
5.S.Diehl,D.van Melkebeek,and R.Williams.A New Time-Space Lower Bound for Nonde-
terministic Algorithms Solving Tautologies.University of Wisconsin-Madison,Department of Computer Sciences TR1601,2007.
6.V.Vassilevska,R.Williams,and R.Yuster.All-Pairs Bottleneck Paths For General Graphs
in Truly Sub-Cubic Time.In ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing(STOC),585–589, 2007.
7.R.Williams.Time-Space Lower Bounds for Counting NP Solutions Modulo Integers.In
IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity(CCC),70–82,2007.
8.R.Williams.Matrix-Vector Multiplication in Sub-Quadratic Time(Some Preprocessing Re-
quired).In ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms(SODA),995–1001,2007.
9.V.Vassilevska,R.Williams,and R.Yuster.Finding heaviest H-subgraphs in real weighted
graphs,with applications.Submitted.Preprint at /abs/cs.DS/0609009.
Preliminary version in International Colloquium on Automata,Languages,and Programming (ICALP)Vol1,262–273,2006.
10.V.Vassilevska and R.Williams.Finding a Minimum Weight Triangle in n3−δTime,With
Applications.In ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing(STOC),225–231,2006.
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11.V.Vassilevska,R.Williams,and S.L.M.Woo.Confronting Hardness Using a Hybrid Ap-
proach.In ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms(SODA),1–10,2006.
12.Y.Interian,G.Corvera,B.Selman,and R.Williams.Finding small unsatisfiability cores to
prove unsatisfiability of QBFs.In Proc.Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathemat-ics,2006.
13.V.Shkapenyuk,R.Williams,S.Harizopoulos,and A.Ailamaki.Deadlock Resolution in
Pipelined Query Graphs.Carnegie Mellon Technical Report CMU-CS-05-122,March2005.
14.R.Williams.Parallelizing Time With Polynomial Circuits.In ACM Symposium on Paral-
lelism in Algorithms and Architectures(SPAA),171–175,2005.
15.R.Williams.Inductive Time-Space Lower Bounds for SAT and Related Problems.Journal
of Computational Complexity15(4):433–470,2006.Preliminary version in IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity(CCC),40–49,2005.
16.R.Williams.A new algorithm for optimal2-constraint satisfaction and its implications.
Theoretical Computer Science,348(2-3):357–365,2005.Preliminary version in International Colloquium on Automata,Languages,and Programming(ICALP),Springer LNCS Vol.3142, 1227–1237,2004.(has been cited40+times)
17.A.Meyerson and R.Williams.On The Complexity of Optimal K-Anonymity.In ACM
Symposium on Principles of Database Systems(PODS),223–228,2004.
(has been cited100+times)
18.R.Williams.On Computing k-CNF Formula Properties.In Theory and Applications of
Satisfiability Testing,Springer LNCS Vol.2919,330–340,2004.
19.R.Williams,C.Gomes,and B.Selman.Backdoors To Typical Case Complexity.In Interna-
tional Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence(IJCAI),1173–1178,2003.
(has been cited70+times)
20.C.Gomes,and B.Selman,and R.Williams.On the connections between backdoors and
heavy-tails in combinatorial search.In International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing(SAT),2003.
21.R.Williams.Algorithms for Quantified Boolean Formulas.In ACM-SIAM Symposium on
Discrete Algorithms(SODA),299–307,2002.
22.R.Williams.Abstract Complexity in Reflexive Type Theory.Working paper,2002.Available
on author’s webpage.
23.R.Williams.Space Efficient Reversible Simulations.Working paper,DIMACS,Summer
2000.Available on author’s webpage.
24.C.Akkoc,J.Klemmack,i,G.Mitchell,J.Moore,A.Smith,R.Williams,J.Wuu.Alice
in solution land.Mathematics and Computer Education,32:3,Sept.1998.
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INVITED TALKS
•China Theory Week,Tsinghua University,September2007.
•Georgia Institute of Technology,April2007.
•Dagstuhl Seminar on Exact Algorithms and Fixed Parameter Tractability,July2005.
•Privacy in D.A.T.A.Workshop,Carnegie Mellon,March2003.
•Microsoft Research(Redmond),June2005.
REFERENCES
•Manuel Blum,Bruce Nelson Professor of Computer Science,Carnegie Mellon University.
Email:mblum@
•Steven Rudich,Professor of Computer Science,Carnegie Mellon University.
Email:rudich@
•Bart Selman,Professor of Computer Science,Cornell University.
Email:selman@
•Dieter Van Melkebeek,Associate Professor of Computer Science,University of Wisconsin.
Email:dieter@
•Ryan O’Donnell,Assistant Professor of Computer Science,Carnegie Mellon University.
Email:odonnell@
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