Service

I am on the PC for SODA 2023.
I was on the PC for ITCS 2022.

I was the organizer of Algorithms Office Hours at MIT, whose goal is to improve communication between theory and applications of algorithms.

I have been a subreviewer for many conferences and journals.

Other

3 Pieces of Reassurance for Early-Stage PhD Students (in TCS)

One of my favorite ways to do research is supercollaboration.

I do ballet and tap dancing.

My brother Alex is also a theoretical computer scientist.

My sister Natasha is an artist x2.

My sister-in-law Melissa is a topologist.

My sister-in-law Maya is a designer.

Nicole Wein

nicole.wein at rutgers dot edu
she/her

I will be on the job market this year.

About Me

I am a postdoc in theoretical computer science at DIMACS working with Sepehr Assadi, Aaron Bernstein, and Martin Farach-Colton.

I did my PhD at MIT advised by Virginia Vassilevska Williams.

I have a Masters in Computer Science from Stanford and a B.S. in Computer Science/Math from Harvey Mudd College where Ran Libeskind-Hadas sparked my interest in algorithms. During undergrad I did an REU at Oregon State University with Glencora Borradaile.

A number other mentors have supported my career including Michael Bender, Moses Charikar, Erik Demaine, Monika Henzinger, Piotr Indyk, Anna Lubiw, Tim Roughgarden, Shay Solomon, and Hsin-Hao Su.

My Research

I do reseach on graph algorithms and lower bounds including in the areas of
distance-estimation algorithms, dynamic algorithms, parameterized algorithms, distributed algorithms, online algorithms, data structures, and fine-grained complexity. I am more broadly interested in algorithmic problems that are combinatorial in nature.

Some questions that guide my research:

How can algorithms cope with changing data?
What information can algorithms extract from a graph in only (say) linear time?
Can we understand the structure of shortest paths in graphs, especially directed graphs?

Publications

Preprints

Closing the Gap Between Directed Hopsets and Shortcut Sets
with Aaron Bernstein
[arXiv]

2022

Online List Labeling: Breaking the log²n Barrier
with Michael A. Bender, Alexander Conway, Martín Farach-Colton, Hanna Komlós, and William Kuszmaul
FOCS
[arXiv]

Approximation Algorithms and Hardness for n-Pairs Shortest Paths and All-Nodes Shortest Cycles
with Mina Dalirooyfard, Ce Jin, and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
FOCS
[arXiv]

Hardness of Token Swapping on Trees
with Oswin Aichholzer, Erik D. Demaine, Matias Korman, Anna Lubiw, Jayson Lynch, Zuzana Masárová, Mikhail Rudoy, and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
ESA
[arXiv] [invited to minisymposium at CANADAM 2021]

Memoryless Worker-Task Assignment with Polylogarithmic Switching Cost
with Aaron Berger, William Kuszmaul, Adam Polak, and Jonathan Tidor
ICALP
[arXiv]

Better Lower Bounds for Shortcut Sets and Additive Spanners via an Improved Alternation Product
with Kevin Lu, Virginia Vassilevska Williams, and Zixuan Xu
SODA
[arXiv]

2021

Algorithms for the Minimum Dominating Set Problem in Bounded Arboricity Graphs: Simpler, Faster, and Combinatorial
with Adir Morgan and Shay Solomon
DISC
[arXiv] [video]

Tight Conditional Lower Bounds for Approximating Diameter in Directed Graphs
with Mina Dalirrooyfard
STOC
[arXiv]

New Techniques and Fine-Grained Hardness for Dynamic Near-Additive Spanners
with Thiago Bergamaschi, Monika Henzinger, Maximilian Probst Gutenberg, and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
SODA
[arXiv]

2020

Lower Bounds for Dynamic Distributed Task Allocation
with Hsin-Hao Su
ICALP, BDA
[arXiv] [video]

New Algorithms and Hardness for Incremental Single-Source Shortest Paths in Directed Graphs
with Maximilian Probst Gutenberg and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
STOC
[arXiv] [video]

2019

Tight Approximation Algorithms for Bichromatic Graph Diameter and Related Problems
with Mina Dalirrooyfard, Virginia Vassilevska Williams, and Nikhil Vyas
ICALP
[arXiv]

Approximation Algorithms for Min-Distance Problems
with Mina Dalirrooyfard, Virginia Vassilevska Williams, Nikhil Vyas, Yinzhan Xu, and Yuancheng Yu
ICALP
[arXiv]

Algorithms and Hardness for Diameter in Dynamic Graphs
with Bertie Ancona, Monika Henzinger, Liam Roditty, and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
ICALP
[arXiv]

2018

Improved Dynamic Graph Coloring
with Shay Solomon
ESA, TALG
[arXiv] [mentioned in blog post]

Finding Cliques in Social Networks: A New Distribution-Free Model
with Jacob Fox, Tim Roughgarden, C. Seshadhri, and Fan Wei
ICALP, SICOMP
[arXiv] [video] [focus of chapter 28 of Beyond the Worst-Case Analysis of Algorithms]

Fully Dynamic MIS in Uniformly Sparse Graphs
with Krzysztof Onak, Baruch Schieber, and Shay Solomon
ICALP, TALG
[arXiv]

Towards Tight Approximation Bounds for Graph Diameter and Eccentricities
with Arturs Backurs, Liam Roditty, Gilad Segal, and Virginia Vassilevska Williams
STOC, SICOMP
[arXiv]