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 66 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, and the Learning Theory team at Google.
Avrim Blum
TTIC, PAST INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2022-2023
Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Northwestern, CURRENT INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2023-2024
Lev Reyzin
UIC, INSTITUTE DIRECTOR 2024-2025 (EXPECTED)
Chao Gao
University of Chicago
Chun Liu
IIT
Antonio (Tuca) Auffinger
Northwestern, Math; Research Committee
Pranjal Awasthi
Google; Industry Coordinator
Randall Berry
Northwestern, EE; Evaluation Director
Ivan Canay
Northwestern, Economics; Research Committee
Natasha Devroye
UIC, ee; Research Committee
Varun Gupta
UChicago, Operations Management, Booth; Education Committee
Jason Hartline
Northwestern, CS; Research Committee
Ian Kash
UIC, CS; Workshops and Special Programs Director
Konstantin Makarychev
Northwestern, CS; Education Committee
Samir Khuller
Northwestern, CS; Director of Participation and Outreach
Lek-Heng Lim
University of Chicago, math; Research Committee
Yury Makarychev
TTI Chicago, CS; Director of Postdoctoral Program
Mehryar Mohri
Google Team Head; Industry Coordinator
Jorge Nocedal
Northwestern; Research Committee
Will Perkins
Georgia Tech, Math/CS; Director of Participation and Outreach
Mesrob Ohannessian
UIC, ee; Education Committee
Nathan Srebro
TTI Chicago, CS; Research Committee
Matthew Walter
TTI Chicago, CS; Outreach Committee
Binghui Wang
IIT, CS; Education Committee
Yichao Wu
UIC, Statistics; Research Committee
Elena Zheleva
UIC, cs; Industry Coordinator
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
Aloni Cohen
University of Chicago, CS and Law
Christoph Dann
Natasha Devroye
UIC, EE
Jinqiao Duan
IIT, math
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
Michael Horn
Northwestern, CS
Joel Horowitz
Northwestern, Economics
Jessica Hullman
Northwestern, CS
Vishesh Jain
UIC, math
Satyen Kale
Lulu Kang
IIT, 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, Math
Daniel W. Linna Jr.
Northwestern, CS/Law
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
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
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
Ravi Kannan
Microsoft
John Lafferty
Yale
Éva Tardos
Cornell
Prasad Tetali
Carnegie Mellon University
Rebecca Willett
University of Chicago
Aditya Bhaskara
University of Utah
Lisa Hellerstsein
NYU
Cynthia Rush
Columbia
Corrine Yap
Rutgers
Saba Ahmadi
TTI Chicago
Jinshuo Dong
Northwestern
Aditya Potukuchi
UIC
Suprovat Ghoshal
Northwestern
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).