Biography

CURRENT AFFILIATION

Scientific Director

Algorithms and Complexity Department

Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics

Saarbrücken, Germany

Also Professor of Computer Science and Saarland University and (part-time) affiliated with KTH

DEGREES

Docent (aka habilitation) in Computer Science from KTH, Sweden, 2017. [🔗wiki]

PhD in ACO (Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization) from Georgia Tech, USA, 2011.

Thesis: "Graph and Geometric Algorithms on Distributed Networks and Databases", available here.

PhD adviser: Richard J. Lipton.

Bachelor in Computer Engineering from Kasetsart University, Thailand, 2003.

SELECTED HONORS

Best paper award at FOCS 2022

For the paper "Negative-Weight Single-Source Shortest Paths in Near-linear Time" co-authored with Aaron Bernstein and Christian Wulff-Nilsen

ERC Starting Grant 2017

ERC Starting Grants award up to 1.5€ million for 5 years to support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to establish a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe. [more]

Principles of Distributed Computing Doctoral Dissertation Award 2013

The award was created in 2012 to acknowledge and promote outstanding research by doctoral (Ph.D.) students on the principles of Distributed Computing. [more]

PROGRAM & ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

2024: SODA 2024, TheoretiCS (Editorial board)

2023: FOCS 2023, TheoretiCS (Editorial board)

2022: SODA 2022, STOC 2022, TheoretiCS (Editorial board)

2021: SIAM Journal on Computing (Editorial board)

2020: SIAM Journal on Computing (Editorial board), SOSA 2020 (PC)

2019: SIAM Journal on Computing (Editorial board), S3CS 2019 (Organizer)

2018: STOC 2018 (PC), SICOMP special issue for STOC 2018 (Guest co-editor), S3CS 2018 (Organizer)

2017: ICALP 2017 (Track A, PC), IPDPS 2017 (Algorithms Track, PC), S3CS 2017 (Organizer)

2016: ADGA 2016 (Chair), S3CS 2016 (Organizer), ESA 2016, SIROCCO 2016 (PC), ICDE 2016 (PC), SODA 2016 (PC)

2015: ISAAC 2015 (PC), DISC 2015 (PC)

2014: DISC 2014 (PC)

MORE ABOUT ME

Erdős number: 2 (Me -- Prasad Tetali -- Paul Erdős).

ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4468-2675

From August 2022: Scientific Director, Algorithms and Complexity Department, Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics, Saarbrücken, Germany. Also Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University.

April 2021-July 2022: Professor (permanent), University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Also affiliated with BARC (Basic Algorithms Research Copenhagen)

February 2018-March 2021: Associate Professor (lektor; permanent), KTH, Sweden. Part-time affiliation from April 2021.

2015-2018: Assistant Professor (biträdande lektor), KTH, Sweden.

Fall 2014: Assistant professor (Assistenzprofessor), University of Vienna, Austria.

Spring 2014: Visiting Postdoc, ICERM, Brown University.

ICERM Semester Program on Network Science and Graph Algorithms.

2012-2013: Postdoc, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Theoretical Computer Science Research Group, Mathematical Sciences Division. Hosted by Gopal Pandurangan.

Thanks: Gopal Pandurangan and Peter Robinson.

2011-2012: Postdoc, University of Vienna, Austria.

Theory and Applications of Algorithms Research Group, led by Monika Henzinger (Director of Research at Google, 2000 – 2004).

Thanks: Monika Henzinger, Sebastian Krinninger, and Krishnendu Chatterjee.

2005-2011: PhD student, Georgia Tech, USA. (Also part of ACO & ARC)

Advisor: Dick Lipton

Semester-long Visits:

- Summer 2010 at Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik (Thanks: Khaled Elbassioni),

- Spring 2010 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Thanks: Lap Chi Lau), and

- Summer 2009 at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (Thanks: Matthew Brand).

2003-2004: Lecturer, Kasetsart University, Si Racha campus, Thailand.

Thanks: Jittat Fakcharoenphol & his Theory group.

1999-2003: Bachelor in Computer Engineering, Kasetsart University, Thailand.

- I did a (non-theory) senior project titled "Self Learning Agent Model: General Board Game Player". Thanks, Arnon Rungsawang & MIKE lab.

- I had also developed the "Gnu Go on Cluster" software financed by NECTEC (National Electronics and Computer Technology Center) and was a finalist in the Thailand National Software Contest 2002.

- I had also interned at NECTEC and worked on the research project "Improving Translation Quality of Rule-based Machine Translation" in 2002.

Before 1999: As a kid, I grew up in a very nice neighbourhood in Nakhon Pathom (นครปฐม, नगर प्रथम), a province in Thailand having a population slightly less than one million and claiming to have the highest pagoda in the world. There, I attended Satit Rajabhat Nakhon Pathom School. I later attended T riam Udom Suksa High School in Bangkok. Meanwhile, I participated in programming competitions and Thailand's IOI tutorial camp, where I found my passion for research in algorithms.