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Berkeley is one of the cradles of modern theoretical computer
science. Over the last thirty years, our graduate students and,
sometimes, their advisors, have done foundational work on
NP-completeness, cryptography, derandomization, probabilistically
checkable proofs, quantum computing, and computational game
theory. The mild weather, the celebrated
coffeeshops, and eateries
and the friendly and collaborative atmosphere in the group are known
to be conducive to great theory-building and problem-solving. Once a
week, our group comes together for the theory lunch,
an event featuring an informal whiteboard presentation, the participation
of our friends from Statistics and Math (and, occasionally, Physics
and Chemistry) and much mingling. TGIF,
the informal student seminar, which is off-limits to faculty, provides a
comfortable space for students to learn about each others work.
Some of our current focus is on using computation as a lens to the sciences. Like probabilistic thinking in the last century, computational thinking will give mathematics and the sciences a new language to use and the ability to formulate new fundamental questions. We are studying the applications of theoretical computer science in many sciences, from economics (with our work on computational game theory and mechanism design) to physics (with our work on random structures and quantum computing), biology and pure mathematics (especially geometry, functional analysis and additive number theory). The core problems in algorithms and complexity remain, of course, dear to our hearts. read more:
Sara Robinson on theory as a
lens to the sciences |
seminarsSpecial conference on Theory of Computation as a Lens on the Sciences, May 7-8, 2011Theory Seminar on Mondays, 4-5pm, Wozniak Lounge EconCS Seminar Quantum Reading Group TGIF, on Fridays, naturally. peopleStudents:Nima Anari | Anand Bhaskar | Antonio Blanca | Ma'ayan Bresler | Brielin Brown | Andrew Chan | Siu Man Chan | Siu On Chan | James Cook | Anindya De | Rafael Frongillo | Luqman Hodgkinson | Urmila Mahadev | George Pierrakos | Anupam Prakash | Sara Sheehan | Jonah Sherman | Seung Woo Shin | Meromit Singer | Yaron Singer | Piyush Srivastava | Isabelle Stanton | Gregory Valiant | Di Wang | Guoming Wang | Tom Watson | Chris Wilkens Faculty: Postdocs: Recent alumni: coursesThis semester:
From the past:
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