Game Theory, Security & More: Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series Starts in March

 

Beginning next month, the Department of Computer Science proudly presents its Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS) which includes a variety of technical lectures given by renowned researchers and professors in the field. All lecturers who will be visiting our campus come from prestigious universities and will be discussing specific areas of interest including security and privacy, data protection, user behavior, game theory, and computational theory. Each lecture will be held at 2:30 PM in Room 120 of the New Computer Science building at Stony Brook University. The exciting lectures planned for this semester are:

March 2, 2016

Security Overlay: Data Protection via User-Intent Monitoring

Presenter: Wenke Lee, Georgia Tech

Wenke Lee is the Co-Director of the Institute for Information Security & Privacy at Georgia Tech. His research interests include systems and network security, applied cryptography, and data mining. Most recently, Lee has focused on botnet detection and malware analysis, security of mobile systems and apps, and detection and mitigation of information manipulation on the Internet. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University.

March 21, 2016

Probabilistic Topic Models and User Behavior

Presenter: David Blei, Columbia University

David Blei joined Columbia in fall 2014 as a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics.  His research involves probabilistic topic models, Bayesian nonparametric methods, and approximate posterior inference.  He works on a variety of applications, including text, images, music, social networks, user behavior, and scientific data. Blei earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Brown University.

March 30, 2016

Learning and Efficiency in Games with Dynamic Population

Presenter: Eva Tardos, Cornell University

Eva Tardos’ research is focused on algorithms and algorithmic game theory, the subarea of theoretical computer science theory of designing systems and algorithms for selfish users. She also works on algorithms and games on networks and simple auctions.  Tardos is most interested in designing algorithms and games that provide provably close-to-optimal results. She received her Ph.D. from Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary.

April 8, 2016

Beyond P vs NP: Quadratic-Time Hardness of Sequence Alignment Problems

Presenter: Piotr Indyk, MIT

Piotr Indyk’s research is focused on high-dimensional computational geometry (including approximate nearest neighbor search), data stream algorithms, sparse recovery, compressive sensing, and sub-linear algorithms. In 2014, he organized a workshop dedicated to the theory and applications of efficient algorithms for finding large Fourier coefficients. Indyk joined MIT in September 2000, after earning his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Since July 2010, he has held the title of Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

 

To read the abstracts detailing each talk, visit the CS department calendar.