Taking a break from the submission season? Swing by the Workshop on Algorithms for Large Data (Online), WALDO 2025 🗓️ April 14—16: waldo-workshop.github.io/2025.html Registration is free! (but necessary by April 7)

We are very proud to announce Lydia Kavraki's election to the National Academy of Sciences. She now has the rare distinction of having been elected to all three national academies: National Academy of Engineering, @NationalAcademyofMed National Academy of Medicine & National Academy of Sciences. 👏👏👏 bit.ly/4k0gftq

🧵#AISTATS2025 paper alert! “Enhancing Feature‑Specific Data Protection via Bayesian Coordinate Differential Privacy (BCDP)" Joint work with Maryam Aliakbarpour, Syomantak Chaudhuri, Tom Courtade, and Mike Jordan. 📍⏰ Poster #59, Poster session 3, Monday 3-6 PM (local time!)

⚠️Problem: Think of a user’s data as a high-dimensional vector: health records, Zip Code, DoB, etc. Local Differential Privacy (LDP) offers strong guarantees but applies the same protection to every feature. Why protect each coordinate as tightly as a sensitive medical condition?

🔗Link to the arXiv version: arxiv.org/abs/2410.18404

Check out the 2025 Rice Engineering and Computing magazine for a feature on "Responsible AI: Innovations for a 21st century world" — engineering.rice.edu/2025-magazine/…. This year's issue highlights how Rice is pioneering solutions for critical global challenges through computing, AI and data science.

The NeurIPS Position Track is seeking additional reviewers this year. If you'd like to serve or nominate a colleague, please complete our nomination form! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

I’m very excited to share that I’ll be joining Rice University as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science (Rice Computer Science) this fall! Huge thanks to my advisors and mentors throughout my PhD and postdoc!

I’ll share more soon, but if you’re a prospective PhD student interested in ML theory, market and mechanism design, game theory, or optimization, definitely consider applying this fall!

“You blew my mind,” said the subject line of an email from #ACMTuringAward recipient Avi Wigderson to Ryan Williams, a theoretical computer scientist at MIT. Earlier, Williams has posted a groundbreaking proof online. bit.ly/3YT9TUE

“High Dimensional Probability” is one of favorite books of all time. I even taught it once. Now, the second edition is out. math.uci.edu/~rvershyn/pape…

My longtime collaborator Dave Patterson (long-time faculty at UC Berkeley, Association for Computing Machinery Turing Award winner, and fellow Laude Institute board member) wrote a very good op-ed about how continued investing in basic science and technology research is essential for the U.S. Dave

AI is deciding who gets a job, a loan, even parole. It’s fast. It’s scalable. But is it fair? 👉 youtu.be/-HyR32dos6A 👀 Alireza Fallah Rice Computer Science explains why algorithmic decisions always involve trade-offs — and how better rules can protect both efficiency and equity.

Thanks to Institute for New Economic Thinking for having me! Excited to see more bridges being built between the CS and Economics communities.

If you are a prospective CS graduate student who wants tips on how to prepare your application and what grad school is like, register to join us on zoom for University of Michigan's "Explore Grad Studies in CSE" workshop. cse.engin.umich.edu/academics/grad…

Welcome new Rice CS faculty member Alireza Fallah! His research spans ML theory, market & mechanism design, and responsible AI—tackling privacy, fairness & society. bit.ly/45ZzEGE

Rice CS researchers advance quantum state learning with algorithms that account for noise that is not just random but malicious. Their work could help make quantum computers more accurate and dependable. bit.ly/3VR1UFm bit.ly/3VR1UFm

The EnCORE Workshop on New Horizons in Adaptive Robustness is happening next week — September 15–17! Register to listen to talks! 🔗 sites.google.com/view/robust-en…

MIT has become the first school to reject the Trump administration’s proposal that offered a select few universities preferential access to federal funds in exchange for agreeing to a set of demands. nbcnews.com/news/education…

having access to people smarter than you is a blessing not a threat.