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Stefan Szeider

Professor
Head of the Algorithms and Complexity Group
Faculty of Informatics
Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien)

Favoritenstraße 9–11, E192-01
1040 Vienna, Austria

Room HC0401
Phone: +43(1)58801–192100
sz@ac.tuwien.ac.at
Twitter

Biography

 


Academic Affiliations. I am a full professor and chair at TU Wien, Vienna, Austria, and head of the Algorithms and Complexity Group. I am a co-chair of the Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA)  and chair of the MSCA doctoral program LogiCS@TUWien. Previously I held academic positions at the University of Durham (UK), the University of Toronto (Can), and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT).

Research. In my research, I combine algorithmic and logic-based methods to solve hard computational problems that arise in Artificial Intelligence, Automated Reasoning, and Combinatorial Optimiziation. The design of efficient algorithms is complemented by complexity-theoretic methods for establishing theoretical limits and lower bounds. I have been the principal investigator of several research projects, including projects from the ERC (EU), the EPSRC (UK), the Nuffield Foundation (UK), the FWF (Austria), and the WWTF (Austria). My Erdős Number is 2, and I have published over 180 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

Publications. A list of my publications can be found here.

Editorial. I am an Associate Editor of  the Journal of Computer and System Sciences (JCSS) and the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR). Previously, I have served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Discrete Algorithms (2014—2018),  Fundamenta Informaticae (2012—2018), and I was a guest editor of Algorithmica (2015) and Discrete Applied Mathematics (2022). I have co-edited the Proceedings of MFCS 2022, IPEC 2013, COMMA 2012, and SAT 2010.

Academic Activities.   I'm an invited speaker at PCCR 2022, the Third Workshop on the Parameterized Complexity of Computational Reasoning, Haifa, part of FloC 2022. I am the chair of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND  doctoral programme logicCS@TUWien, the coordinator of the research focus Logic and Computation (one of the four research foci at the Faculty of Informatics), Board member of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (CAIML), the scientific co-organizer of the Vienna Gödel Lectures, the deputy speaker of the Doctoral Program Logical Methods in Computer Science (LogiCS), and the chair of the jury for the Heinz Zemanek Dissertation Price of the Austrian Computer Society

Public Outreach. I'm engaged in dissemination activities of Computer Science to children and interested people;  I am a founding member of the initiative ADA (Algorithms Think Differently), curator of the world record human sorting network,  and the initiator of the video competition Algorithms in 60 Seconds. In 2021, I gave a lecture on Algorithms to the Austrian Parlament. I have created a contemporary version of the Garey-Johnson Cartoon and an OBDD representation of the US presidential election. Here is some recent media coverage.

Teaching. I am responsible for the Algorithms and Data Structures course (Bachelor's) and Algorithmics (Master's).  The former course was nominated for the Best Teaching Award 2022 and the Best Distance Learning Award 2020. I'm also part of the course Ways of Thinking in Informatics which won a Special Award for Digital Teaching in 2022.

Awards and Prizes. I received a Best Paper Award at CP 2020 (with Tomas Peitl), and a first prize in the PACE 2019 competition (with Andre Schidler). I was the first Austrian Computer Scientist to receive an award from the European Research Council (ERC Start 2009).

Graduate Students and Postdocs. My current students and postdocs are Andre Schidler (PhD), Vaidyanathan P. R. (PhD), Tianwei Zhang (PhD), Hai Xia (PhD), Alexis de Colnet (Postdoc), Leroy Chew (postdoc),  Friedrich Slivovsky (Postdoc), and Jan Dreier (Postdoc). Former Postdocs were Robert Ganian (now Prof. at TU Wien), Sebastian Ordyniak (now Prof. at U Leeds), Simone Bova, Ramanujan Sridharan (now Prof. at U Warwick), Serge Gaspers (now UNSW), Neeldhara Misra (now Prof. at IIT Gandhinaga), and Marko Samer. My former graduate students were Tomas Peitl (PhD 2019, after postdoc at U Jena back at TU Wien), Neha Lodha (PhD 2019, Best Student paper at SAT 2016, now Mondi Group), Eduard Eiben (PhD 2018, received Austria's Award of Excellence, now Prof. at RHUL, U London),  Ronald de Haan (PhD 2016, received the Beth Dissertation Prize, now Prof. at U Amsterdam), Johannes Fichte (PhD 2015, now U Dresden), Friedrich Slivovsky (PhD 2015, now TU Wien), Luke Mathieson (PhD 2010, now UT Sydney).

Organization of Scientific Events. I'm the general chair and co-organzier of MFCS 2022, the 47th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, August 22-26, 2022, Vienna, Austria; am co-organzing LMML 2022, the Workshop on Logic-based Methods in Machine Learning, part of FLoC 2022; and I am co-organizing the Dagstuhl Seminar SAT Encodings and Beyond, June 25-30, 2023. Previously, I've co-organized the 9th Workshop on Graph Classes, Optimization, and Width Parameters (GROW 2019), the Congress on Algorithms (ALGO 2017), the Symposium on New Frontiers in Knowledge Compilation (2015), the First Symposium on Structure in Hard Combinatorial Problems (2013), the Third Workshop on Kernelization (2011), and the first Workshop on the Parameterized Complexity of Computational Reasoning (2010).  I was the workshop chair at FLoC 2014, overseeing 74 workshops.

Programm Committees. UAI 2023 (PC), SAT 2023 (PC), MFCS 2022 (general chair),  AAAI 2022 (SPC), UAI 2022 (PC), SEA 2022 (PC), UAI 2021 (PC), SOCS 2021 (PC), SAT 2021 (PC),   AAAI 2021 (SPC), NeurIPS 2021 (PC), SOCS 2020 (PC),  NeurIPS 2020 (PC), CP 2020 (PC),  IJCAI-PRICAI 2020 (SPC),  SAT 2020 (PC), CPAIOR 2020 (PC), GROW 2019 (co-chair), SoCS 2019 (PC),  CP 2019 (PC), IJCAI 2019 (SPC), ICALP 2019 (PC), SAT 2018, IJCAI-ECAI 2018 (SPC), ALGO 2017 (chair),  SAT 2017 (PC),  IPEC 2016 (PC), STACS 2016 (PC), SAT 2016 (PC), BeyondNP 2016 (PC), IJCAI 2016 (SPC),  SAT 2015 (PC), IJCAI 2015 (SPC), FLoC 2014 (workshop chair),  ECAI 2014 (PC),  SAT 2014 (PC), STAIRS 2014 (PC),  ECAI 2014 (PC),  ISAIM 2014 (PC),  IPEC 2013 (co-chair),  SAT 2013 (PC), CP 2013 (SPC), QBF 2013 (PC), IJCAI 2013 (SPC), CP 2012 (PC),  AAAI 2012 (PC),  MEMICS 2012 (PC),  SAT 2012 (PC),  SAT 2011 (PC),  NECTAR 2011 (PC),  MFCS 2010 (PC), ISAIM 2010 (PC),  NECTAR 2010 (PC),  SAT 2010 (co-chair),  IWPEC 2009 (PC),  IJCAI 2009 (PC),  SAT 2009 (PC),  CATS 2009 (PC), ASCW 2009,  IWPEC 2008 (PC),  AAAI 2008 (PC),  SAT 2008 (PC),  SAT 2007,  SAT 2006 (PC),  WADS 2005 (PC),  SAT 2005 (PC).

News

  • New FWF ESPRIT Postdocs

    New FWF ESPRIT Postdocs

    2022-11-09
    Leroy Chew and Alexis de Colnet just joined the Algorithms and Complexity group as PIs of their own FWF ESPRIT …Read More »
  • Best student paper award at DIAGRAMS 2022

    Best student paper award at DIAGRAMS 2022

    2022-10-01
    Alexander Dobler received the Best Student Paper Award at the 13th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams …Read More »
  • Robert Ganian promoted to Associate Professor

    Robert Ganian promoted to Associate Professor

    2022-07-01
    Effective as of today, Robert Ganian is promoted to a tenured Associate Professor at the Algorithms and Complexity group. Congratulations, …Read More »
  • Best paper award at EvoCOP 2022

    Best paper award at EvoCOP 2022

    2022-05-24
    Jonas Mayerhofer, Markus Kirchweger, Marc Huber, and Günther Raidl received the best paper award for their work A Beam Search …Read More »
  • New PhD: Guangping Li

    New PhD: Guangping Li

    2022-05-13
    Guangping Li successfully defended her PhD thesis “An Algorithmic Study of Practical Map Labeling” on May 13, 2022. Congratulations, Dr. …Read More »

News archive

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