@mahdi.ch
Theoretical Computer Science professor @ U. of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Opinions are mine and may evolve over time. repost β endorsement. Policy: I don't interact with anonymous profiles. Join AAUP. he/him/his.
If you are an elected official that opposes military strikes on Iran, the head of CBS News will clap back at you. Will be interesting to see if she does this for other objectors, or just Muslim politicians, but it does raise the question how much her views of the Middle East shape the news.
Related to this, Nature considers the University of Michigan the #4 in the US:
www.nature.com/nature-index...
Very exciting: The IEEE ITW 2026 is happening in Arizona in November, after being held outside the US over the past two decades! This year's conference is organized under the phenomenal leadership of general co-chairs Oliver Kosut, Lalitha Sankar, and Bane VasiΔ.
2026.ieee-itw.org
Time ranks the University of Michigan #9 in the world and the #1 public university in the US!
time.com/7358185/top-...
Purdue's actions are disgusting. Time to boycott until they explicitly announce a stop to this nonsense.
Quantum mechanics is controversial.
Congratulations to our colleague John Wright, who has received a 2026 Sloan Fellowship!
chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/seven-u...
Henry Yuen went into computer science to design video games, but he ended up studying the theoretical foundations of quantum computing. "Looking back, I couldn't have predicted any of the twists and turns that my interests have taken," he said.
A whopping 13 papers by the @umich.edu CS theory group accepted to STOC 2026 (>6% of all papers)! Including 3 papers by my two amazing PhD students Nikhil Shagrithaya @nikhilshagri.bsky.social (looking for postdocs, hire him!) and Yeyuan Chen. Go Blue!
acm-stoc.org/stoc2026/acc...
New SIGACT award expository work, created in memory of Luca Trevisan: "intended to promote and recognize high-impact work expositing ideas and results from the Theory of Computation."
A wonderful initiativeβconsider nominating people!
β° Nomination deadline: April 10
sigact.org/prizes/trevi...
Virtually ALL tech companies have NO chat/phone customer support (or barely ANY customer support at all). This should be made illegal.
Looks like an incredible textbook. I've always admired Watson's precision and clarity of presentation.
Rasool Jalili, a former president of Sharif Univ, is now sanctioned by the EU for abusing his academic role "for serious human rights violations in Iran." Once again, he has tainted the reputation of Sharif & has effectively destroyed his own academic career.
www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/pre...
For papers in any area, you can use Google Scholar to generate BibTeX :)
The ISIT 2026 conference announces that papers with a co-author who resides in Iran can ask for a short extension of the submission deadline. Please spread the word and help your Iranian colleagues contact the organizers.
www.itsoc.org/news/isit-20...
A screenshot showing I am connected to the Eduroam wifi
Thrilled and humbled to announce
These are actually sets. Have a look at how Knuth explains why the notation is the way it is: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
In the latest In this episode of our Polylogues web series, Simons Institute Founding Associate Director Alistair Sinclair interviews newly appointed Institute Director Venkatesan Guruswami.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY37...
Finally a candidate for U-Mich Regent who fights for civil rights and isnβt in it just for power and financial advantage.
Vote Amir Makled.
The info and slides of the 18 π "Graduating Bits" participants are now available on the website!
Look at them, hire them!
focs.computer.org/2025/graduat...
Best category of FOCS awards ππ
A coffee cart with the FOCS logo
A coffee cup with the writing "magic"
Kicking off the first day of the main conference with proper caffeination! #FOCS2025
Absolutely disgusting and (currently) illegal move by Purdue University, banning ALL graduate students from China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.
Purdue faculty need to protest to stop this immediately.
Fun fact: Purdue's President is Chinese.
www.purdueexponent.org/campus/featu...
The inaugural Computational Complexity Conference Test of Time Award seeks nominations (deadline Monday, March 2, 2026). Help us select an awesome paper for this award!
computationalcomplexity.org/tot/tot26.html
That will be announced in 2064 because we need to check the impact within a 39 light-year radius.
βThis report underscore[s] how the Civil Rights Act of 1964βwhich passed in response to years of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial injusticeβis being misused to squash political dissent & speech that advocates for the human rights of Palestinians.β
β Veena Dubal, AAUP General Counsel
Avi Wigderson's Clay Math talk on the P vs NP problem, marking 25 years since the Millennium Prize Problems were formulated.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX9i...
π¨ I am co-chairing ALT 2026 this year with Matus Telgarsky. The submission server is open so please submit your best work!
Deadline: Oct 2, 2025 AoE
Confernece: Feb 23-26, 2026 in Toronto!
Website: algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2026/
The best move in chess isn't a function of only the current position because whether or not you can castle, capture by en passant, or draw by repetition/50 moves depends on what happened in the past.
The announcement from the University of Michigan that they will no longer provide their transgender patients with all of the healthcare options available is shameful, dangerous, and potentially illegal.
www.freep.com/story/news/h...