The Optimisation and Algorithms Group conducts research in discrete optimisation, algorithm design, and related areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science. Our work is primarily theoretical, though often motivated by problems arising in areas such as network optimisation, transportation, scheduling, and multi-agent learning.
Members of the group publish in leading journals including Mathematical Programming; Mathematics of Operations Research; Operations Research; Journal of the ACM; Journal of Combinatorial Theory (Series B); Combinatorica; Combinatorics, Probability and Computing; and SIAM Journal on Computing, as well as in top conferences such as FOCS, STOC, SODA, and IPCO.
The group contributes to teaching across the department, and in particular to the Operations Research & Analytics MSc programme.
Individual faculty interests are listed below, along with those of our Postdoctoral Fellows and Research Students.
Dr Ahmad Abdi
Combinatorial optimisation; integer and linear programming; graph theory; matroid theory
Dr Tugkan Batu
Algorithms and the theory of computation; randomised algorithms; sublinear algorithms on massive data sets; property testing; computational statistics
Professor Andrew Lewis-Pye
Logic; Computability; Algorithmic Randomness; Network Science; Complex systems; Distributed Computing; Cryptocurrencies
Dr Neil Olver
Combinatorial optimisation and its intersections with algorithmic game theory and probability; network design; algorithms in network optimisation and applications in traffic and telecommunication
Dr Katerina Papadaki
Multiagent learning in pricing games; search and patrolling games; robust optimisation; combinatorial optimisation; approximate dynamic programming algorithms; applications in wireless networks, transportation, energy efficiency, scheduling, and financial portfolio optimisation
Dr Raimundo Saona Urmeneta
Mathematics, Game Theory, and Computer Science
Professor Gregory Sorkin
Random graphs and random structures; phase transitions; average-case analysis; exponential-time algorithms; and applications in operations research, biology, auctions, etc.
Shengding Sun
Polynomial optimisation, integer and linear optimisation
Dr Giacomo Zambelli
Integer programming; combinatorial optimization; polyhedral combinatorics; 0/1 matrices; graph theory