about us
Meet Our Team
Additionally, the involvement of Google Research adds to our technical strengths and allows us to have more real-world impact with a direct connection to industry.
60+ Researchers
IDEAL comprises 75 faculty and 9 industry team members from the University of Illinois Chicago, Northwestern University, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, the University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University Chicago, and the Learning Theory team at Google.
Lev Reyzin
UIC, current INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2024-2025
Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Northwestern, Past INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2023-2024
Avrim Blum
TTIC, PAST INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2022-2023
Chao Gao
University of Chicago
Chun Liu
IIT
Steven Keith Platt
Loyola University Chicago
Antonio (Tuca) Auffinger
Northwestern, Math; Research Committee
Pranjal Awasthi
Google; Industry Coordinator
Randall Berry
Northwestern, EE; Evaluation Director
Natasha Devroye
UIC, ee; Research Committee
Ermin Wei
Northwestern, EE/IEMS; Industry Coordinaton Commitee
Jason Hartline
Northwestern, CS; Research Committee
Ian Kash
UIC, CS; Workshops and Special Programs Director
Samir Khuller
Northwestern, CS; Director of Participation and Outreach
Lek-Heng Lim
University of Chicago, CAM; Research Committee
Haifeng Xu
University of Chicago, cs; Industry Coordinaton Commitee
Yury Makarychev
TTI Chicago, CS; Director of Postdoctoral Program
Mehryar Mohri
Google Team Head
Mesrob Ohannessian
UIC, ee; Education Committee
Gyorgy Turan
UIC, Math; Research Committee
Daniela Tuninetti
UIC, ECE; Ombudsperson
Cong Ma
UChicago, Stats; Education Commitee
Julia Chuzhoy
TTI, CS and Math; Research Committee
Matthew Walter
TTI Chicago, CS; Director of Participation and Outreach, Industry Coordinaton Commitee
Binghui Wang
IIT, CS; Education Committee
Elena Zheleva
UIC, cs; Industry Coordinator
Zhaoran Wang
Northwestern, IEMS; Research Committee
Marcus Michelen
UIC, Math; Director of Participation and Outreach
Ren Wang
IIT, ECE ;Industry Outreach committee
Alekh Agarwal
Eric Auerbach
Northwestern, Economics
Antonio (Tuca) Auffinger
Northwestern, math
Pranjal Awasthi
Avrim Blum
TTIC, CS
Federico Bugni
Northwestern, Economics
Randall Berry
Northwestern, ECE
Ivan Canay
Northwestern, Economics
Ozan Candogan
University of Chicago, Operations Management
Ahmet Enis Cetin
UIC, EE
Yu Cheng
Brown University, CS
Julia Chuzhoy
TTI, CS and Math
Feng Ruan
Northwestern, Statistics
Yutong Wang
Illinois Tech, CS
Aloni Cohen
University of Chicago, CS and Law
Christoph Dann
Natasha Devroye
UIC, EE
James Freitag
UIC, Math
Claudio Gentile
Reza Gheissari
Northwestern, Math
Dongning Guo
Northwestern, EE
Chao Gao
University of Chicago, Statistics
Julia Gaudio
Northwestern, OR and Stats
Benjamin Golub
Northwestern, Economics
Varun Gupta
University of Chicago, Operations Management
Shuo Han
UIC, EE
Jason Hartline
Northwestern, CS
Frederic Koehler
UC, Statistics
Michael Horn
Northwestern, CS
Joel Horowitz
Northwestern, Economics
Jessica Hullman
Northwestern, CS
Vishesh Jain
UIC, math
Satyen Kale
Lulu Kang
UMass Amherst, math
Ian Kash
UIC, cs
Samir Khuller
Northwestern, CS
Mladen Kolar
University of Chicago, Stat/CS
Annie Liang
Northwestern, Economics
Tengyuan Liang
University of Chicago, Econ/Stat
Lek-Heng Lim
University of Chicago, CAM
Daniel W. Linna Jr.
Northwestern, CS/Law
Diana Acosta Navas
Loyola University Chicago, Business Ethics
Chun Liu
IIT, math
Cong Ma
UChicago, Stats
Konstantin Makarychev
Northwestern, CS
Yury Makarychev
TTI Chicago, CS
Teodor Vanislavov Marinov
Marcus Michelen
UIC, Math
Mehryar Mohri
Rad Niazadeh
University of Chicago, Operations Management
Jorge Nocedal
Northwestern, IEMS
Mesrob Ohannessian
UIC, EE
Lorenzo Orecchia
Uchicago, CS
Will Perkins
Georgia Tech, Math/cs
Steven Keith Platt
Loyola University Chicago, Business
Peter Norlander
Loyola University Chicago, Management
Veronika Rockova
University of Chicago, Stat
Miklos Z. Racz
Northwestern, Stat/CS
Lev Reyzin
UIC, math/cs
Anastasios (Tasos) Sidiropoulos
UIC, CS
Nathan Srebro
TTI Chicago, CS
Xiaorui Sun
UIC, CS
Yi Sun
University of Chicago, Statistics
Madhur Tulsiani
TTIC, cs
Daniela Tuninetti
UIC, ECE
Gyorgy Turan
UIC, Math
Victor Veitch
University of Chicago, Stat
Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Northwestern, CS
Binghui Wang
IIT, CS
Kaize Ding
Northwestern, STATISTICS AND DATA SCIENCE
Matthew Walter
TTIC, CS
Ren Wang
IIT, ECE
Zhaoran Wang
Northwestern, IEMS
Ermin Wei
Northwestern, EE/IEMS
Yichao Wu
UIC; Stat
Haifeng Xu
University of Chicago, cs
Miloš Žefran
UIC; EE
Xinhua Zhang
UIC; CS
Elena Zheleva
UIC; CS
Ming Zhong
IIT, math
Ping-Shou Zhong
UIC, Stat
Julian Zimmert
Stefani Karp
Huiling Liao
Illinois Tech, Math
Ravi Kannan
Microsoft
John Lafferty
Yale
Éva Tardos
Cornell
Prasad Tetali
Carnegie Mellon University
Rebecca Willett
University of Chicago
Gil Kur
UIC
Saba Ahmadi
TTI Chicago
Idan Attias
UIC
He Jia
NOrthwestern
Dravyansh Sharma
TTIC
Jinshuo Dong (Former postdoc)
Northwestern
Cynthia Rush (former long-term visitor)
Columbia
Corrine Yap (former long-term visitor)
Rutgers
Aditya Potukuchi (Former postdoc)
UIC
Suprovat Ghoshal (Former postdoc)
Northwestern
Aditya Bhaskara (former long-term visitor)
University of Utah
Lisa Hellerstsein (former long-term visitor)
NYU
Ali Vakilian (Former Postdoc)
TTI Chicago
Our Sponsors
The Phase II operations of the IDEAL is supported by the National Science Foundation through the TRIPODS HDR program (under the awards EECS 2216970, 2217023, 2216926, 2216912, 2216899). The IDEAL Phase II institute builds on the activities of two NSF TRIPODS Phase 1 institutes: IDEAL Phase 1 (supported by the NSF award CCF 1934931) and UIC TRIPODS Institute (supported by the NSF award CCF 1934915).