Anisur Rahaman Molla

I moved to ISI Kolkata in 2018 (Nov) after spending a couple of wonderful years at NISER Bhubaneswar. Before NISER, I was a postdoc in the Algorithms and Complexity group headed by Prof. Dr. Fabian Kuhn at University of Freiburg, Germany. I also spent a short time at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) as a postdoc, hosted by Prof. Jason Gu.

I earned my PhD from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. My advisor was Prof. Gopal Pandurangan.

• The Mathematics Genealogy Project  

• My Google Scholar Citations 

• My DBLP - research publications database

Research Interest:

My research interests are in distributed computing and network algorithms. In particular, I am interested in the theory and application of large-scale distributed and dynamic networks, design and analysis of distributed and parallel algorithms, randomized algorithms and probabilistic analysis of algorithms, communication complexity, security in distributed computing,  distributed computation via mobile agents, distributed processing of big data.

Publications: *Authors' names are in alphabetical order 

  Journal Papers: 

• Efficient live exploration of a dynamic ring with mobile robots, with Subhrangsu Mandal, William K. Moses Jr. Theoretical Computer Science (TCS-A), volume 980, pages 114201, 2023. DOI: 10.1016/J.TCS.2023.114201

• On the Message Complexity of Fault-Tolerant Computation: Leader Election and Agreement, with Manish Kumar. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), volume 34, pages 1115 - 1127, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TPDS.2023.3239993.  

• Economy Versus Disease Spread: Reopening Mechanisms for COVID-19, J. Augustine, K. Hourani, A. R. Molla, G. Pandurangan, A. Pasic. PLOS ONE 2022, 17(9): e0272739, 2022. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272739.  [PDF]. (The paper analyses and suggests some reopening mechanisms that investigate trade off between containing the spread of COVID-19 and maximizing the economic activities. An explanation of the results in layman's language, by Gopal Pandurangan can be found at LINK.)

• Greedy Routing and the Algorithmic Small-World Phenomenon,  K. Bringmann, R. Keusch, J. Lengler, Y. Maus, A. R. Molla. Journal of Computer and System Sciences (JCSS), volume 125, pages 59 - 105, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcss.2021.11.003. 

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots using Global Communication, A. D. Kshemkalyani, A. R. Molla, G. Sharma. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), volume 161, pages 100 - 117, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2021.11.007.  

• Optimal Dispersion on an Anonymous Ring in the Presence of Weak Byzantine Robots, A. R. Molla, K. Mondal, W. K. Moses Jr. Theoretical Computer Science (TCS-A), volume 887, pages 111 - 121, 2021. 

• The Cost of Global Broadcast in Dynamic Radio Networks, M. Ahmadi, A. Ghodselahi, F. Kuhn, A. R. Molla. Invited for the special issue at Theoretical Computer Science (TCS-A), volume 806, pages 363 - 387, 2020. 

• Optimal Deterministic Distributed Algorithms for Maximal Independent Set in Geometric Graphs, A. R. Molla, S. Pandit, S. Roy. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), volume 132, pages 36 - 47, 2019.

• Distributed Computation in Dynamic Networks via Random Walks, A. Das Sarma, A. R. Molla, G. Pandurangan. Theoretical Computer Science (TCS-A), volume 581, pages 45 - 66, 2015. 

• Efficient Random Walk Sampling in Distributed Networks, A. Das Sarma, A. R. Molla, G. Pandurangan. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), volume 77, pages 84 - 94, 2015.

• Fast Distributed PageRank Computation, A. Das Sarma, A. R. Molla, G. Pandurangan, E. Upfal. Theoretical Computer Science (TCS-A), volume 561, pages 113-121, 2015. Special issue of selected papers of the 14th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2013). 

  Peer Reviewed Conference Papers 

• Agent-Based Triangle Counting and its Applications in Anonyous Graphs, with Prabhat Kumar Chand, Apurba Das. AAMAS 2024 (extended abstract). Auckland, New Zealand. 

• Sublinear Message Bounds of Authenticated Implicit Byzantine Agreement, with Manish Kumar. ICDCN 2024. Chennai, India. DOI: 10.1145/3631461.3631548

• Maximal Independent Set via Mobile Agents, with Debasish Pattanayak, Subhash Bhagat, Sruti Gan Chaudhuri. ICDCN 2024. Chennai, India. DOI: 10.1145/3631461.3631543

• Run for Cover: Dominating Set via Mobile Agents, with Prabhat Kumar Chand, Sumathi Sivasubramaniam. ALGOWIN 2023. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-48882-5\_10

• Fast Deterministic Gathering with Detection on Arbitrary Graphs: The Power of Many Robots, with with Kaushik Mondal, William K. Moses Jr.  IPDPS 2023. St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. DOI: 10.1109/IPDPS54959.2023.00015

• Improved Deterministic Leader Election in Diameter-Two Networks, with Manish Kumar, Sumathi Sivasubramaniam. CIAC 2023. Larnaca, Cyprus. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-30448-4\_23 

• Fault-Tolerant Dispersion of Mobile Robots, with Prabhat Kumar Chand, Manish Kumar, Sumathi Sivasubramaniam. CALDAM 2023. Gandhinagar, India. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-25211-2\_3

• Byzantine Connectivity Testing in the Congested Clique, with John Augustine, Gopal Pandurangan, Yadu Vasudev. DISC 2022. Augusta, Georgia, USA. DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2022.7

• Fault-Tolerant Graph Realizations in the Congested Clique, with Manish Kumar, Sumathi Sivasubramaniam. ALGOSENSORS 2022. Potsdam, Germany. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-22050-0\_8

• Message Complexity of Multi-Valued Implicit Agreement with Shared Random Bits, with Kaustav Bose.  23rd International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2022),  New Delhi, India (held virtually). Nominated for the best paper award (one among the four nominated papers).  

• Weak Amnesiac Flooding, with Zahra Bayramzadeh, Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. ISPDC 2021. Cluj-Napoca, Romania (Virtual conference). 

• On the Message Complexity of Fault-Tolerant Computation: Leader Election and Agreement (Brief Announcement), with Manish Kumar. PODC 2021. Virtual (Originally in Italy). (pdf)

• Weak Amnesiac Flooding of Multiple Messages, with Zahra Bayramzadeh, Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. NETYS 2021. Virtual conference. 

• Min-Max Gathering of Oblivious Robots (Brief Announcement), with Subhash Bhagat. SPAA 2021. Virtual (Originally in Philadelphia, USA) 

• Byzantine Dispersion on Graphs, with Kaushik Mondal, William K. Moses Jr. IPDPS 2021. Portland, Oregon, USA.

• Smoothed Analysis of Leader Election in Distributed Networks, with Disha Shur. SSS 2020. Austin, Texas, USA.

• Scalable and Secure Computation Among Strangers: Message-Competitive Byzantine Protocols, with John Augustine, Valerie King, Gopal Pandurangan, Jared Saia. DISC 2020. Freiburg, Germany. 

• Live Exploration with Mobile Robots in a Dynamic Ring, Revisited, with Subhrangsu Mandal, William K. Moses Jr. (arXiv). ALGOSENSORS 2020. Pisa, Italy.

• Efficient Dispersion on an Anonymous Ring in the Presence of Weak Byzantine Robots,  with Kaushik Mondal, William K. Moses Jr. ALGOSENSORS 2020. Pisa, Italy.

• Efficient Distributed Algorithms for the K-Nearest Neighbors Problem, with Reza Fathi, Gopal Pandurangan. 32nd ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA 2020, Brief Announcement), Philadelphia, USA.

• Efficient Dispersion of Mobile Robots on Dynamic Graphs, with Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. 40th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2020), Singapore.

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots on Grids, with Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. 14th International Conference and Workshops on Algorithms and Computation (WALCOM 2020), Singapore. 

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots in the Global Communication Model, with Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. 21st International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2020), Kolkata, India. 

• Fast Dispersion of Mobile Robots on Arbitrary Graphs, with Ajay D. Kshemkalyani, Gokarna Sharma. International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Sensor Networks (ALGOSENSORS 2019), Munich, Germany. pdf

• Efficient Distributed Community Detection in the Stochastic Block Model, with Reza Fathi, Gopal Pandurangan. 39th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2019), Texas, USA.

• The Communication Cost of Information Spreading in Dynamic Networks, with Mohamad Ahmadi, Fabian Kuhn, Shay Kutten, Gopal Pandurangan. 39th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2019), Texas, USA. pdf

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots: The Power of Randomness, with William K. Moses Jr. 15th Annual Conference on Theory and Applications of Models of Computation (TAMC 2019), Kitakyushu, Japan. pdf

• Sublinear Message Bounds for Randomized Agreement, with John Augustine, Gopal Pandurangan. 37th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2018), Royal Holloway, United Kingdom.  

• Local Mixing Time: Distributed Computation and Applications, with Gopal Pandurangan. 32nd International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS 2018), Vancouver, Canada. arXiv

• Greedy Routing and the Algorithmic Small-World Phenomenon,  with Karl Bringmann, Ralph Keusch, Johannes Lengler, Yannic Maus. 36th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2017), Washington, DC, USA.

• Distributed Computation of Mixing Time, with Gopal Pandurangan. 18th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2017), Hyderabad, India.

• Distributed Sparse Cut Approximation, with Fabian Kuhn. 19th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2015), Rennes, France.

• The Cost of Global Broadcast in Dynamic Radio Networks, with Mohamad Ahmadi, Abdolhamid Ghodselahi, Fabian Kuhn. 19th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2015), Rennes, France.  

• Distributed Computation of Sparse Cuts via Random Walks, with Atish Das Sarma, Gopal Pandurangan. 16th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2015), Goa, India.

• Storage and Search in Dynamic Peer-to-Peer Networks, with John Augustine, Ehab Morsy, Gopal Pandurangan, Peter Robinson, Eli Upfal. 25th ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA 2013), Montreal, Canada.

• Fast Distributed PageRank Computation, with Atish Das Sarma, Gopal Pandurangan, Eli Upfal. 14th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2013), Mumbai, India.

• Efficient Distributed Computation via Random Walks, Anisur Rahaman Molla. In PhD Forum, ICDCN 2013, Mumbai, India. Best Contributor Award (PhD Forum). 

• Fast Distributed Computation in Dynamic Networks via Random Walks, with Atish Das Sarma, Gopal Pandurangan. 26th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2012), Salvador, Brazil.

• Near-Optimal Random Walk Sampling in Distributed Networks, with Atish Das Sarma, Gopal Pandurangan. 31st Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2012), Florida, USA.             

Note: Most of the above papers are available in arXiv. Mail me if you want a copy. 

Tutorials:

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots, with William K. Moses Jr.  The 41st ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC), July 2022, Salerno, Italy.  

• Dispersion of Mobile Robots, with William K. Moses Jr.  The 23rd International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN), January, 2022, New Delhi, India (held virtually). 

• Byzantine Agreement and Leader Election: From Classical to the Modern, with John Augustine, Gopal Pandurangan. The 40th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC), July 26-30, 2021, Salerno, Italy (held virtually). 

• Byzantine Agreement and Leader Election: From Classical to the Modern, with John Augustine, Gopal Pandurangan. 21st International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN), January 2020 Kolkata, India. 

Some Other Manuscripts: 

• Random Walks in Distributed Networks and Their Applications. PhD Thesis 2014, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

  • Studies on Tate Pairing Computations on Edwards Curves and A Strongly Unified Addition Formula for Elliptic Curves. Master Thesis 2010. Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. 

• Proof of : Fundamental Theorem of Algebraic Graph Theory. A term paper, during M.Tech (CS) at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. (pdf)

Short CV:

• 2023 (Mar) - Present: Associate Professor at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

• 2018 (Nov) - 2023 (Feb): Assistant Professor at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.

• 2017 (Mar) - 2018 (Nov): Assistant Professor at NISER Bhubaneswar.

• 2016 (Nov) - 2017 (Feb): INSPIRE Faculty at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

• 2014 (Sept) - 2016 (Oct): Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Freiburg with Prof. Fabian Kuhn.

• 2014 (Apr) - 2014 (Aug): Postdoctoral Researcher at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), with Prof. Jason Gu.

• 2013 (Nov) - 2014 (Apr): Project officer in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, with Prof. Gopal Pandurangan.

• 2011 (Jan) - 2013 (Oct): PhD student in the Division of Mathematical Sciences, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at Nanyang Technological University. 

• 2010 (Aug) - 2011 (Jan): Visiting Scientist in the Statistics and Mathematics Unit at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, kindly hosted by Prof. Rana Barua.

• 2010 (Jul): M.Tech (Computer Science) degree at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.    

• 2007 (Jul): M.Sc (Pure Mathematics) degree in the Department of Pure Mathematics at Calcutta University. 

• 2005 (Jul): B.Sc (Mathematics, Honours) degree at Maulana Azad College, Calcutta University.        

Teaching:

• Computing Systems II (Jan -May 2024). M.Tech. (CrS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Distributed Computing (Aug - Dec 2023). M.Tech. (CS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Automata Theory, Languages and Computation (Aug - Dec 2023). M.Tech (CrS)  course at ISI Kolkata. 

• Computing Systems II (Jan -May 2023). M.Tech. (CrS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Distributed Computing (Aug - Dec 2022). M.Tech. (CS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Computing Systems II (Feb-June 2022). M.Tech. (CrS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Automata Theory, Languages and Computation (Oct 2021 - Jan 2022). M.Tech (CrS) course at ISI Kolkata. 

• Computing Systems II (March-July 2021). M.Tech. (CrS) course at ISI Kolkata.

• Automata Theory, Languages and Computation (Dec 2020 - March 2021). M.Tech (CrS) at ISI Kolkata. 

• Computing Systems II (Jan-May 2020) at ISI. M.Tech (CrS) Course.

• Automata Theory, Languages and Computation (July-Dec 2019). M.Tech (CrS) at ISI Kolkata.  

• Distributed Computing (July-Dec 2019) M.Tech (CS) 2nd year course, ISI Kolkata. (jointly with Dr. Ansuman Banerjee) 

• Computing Systems II (Even Semester 2018-2019) at ISI. M.Tech (CrS) Course. 

• CS201 -- Theory of Computation (Odd Semester 2018-2019) at NISER.

• CS141-- Programming and Data Structure I (Summer 2018) at NISER.  

• CS142-- Programming and Data Structure II (Even Semester 2017-2018) at NISER.  

• CS201 -- Theory of Computation (Odd Semester 2017-2018) at NISER

• M142 -- Computation Laboratory II (Summer 2017) at NISER

• GIAN course -- Distributed Network Algorithms: Foundations and Future Directions (01 - 12 August, 2016 at IIT Madras): Teaching Assistant

• Graduate course -- Theoretical Computer Science - Bridging Course (Summer 2016 at Uni Freiburg): Tutor and (partial) lecturer

• Graduate seminar course -- Distributed Algorithms (Summer 2015 and Summer 2016 at Uni Freiburg): Mentor 

• Graduate seminar course -- Theory of Computation (Winter 2015/16 at Uni Freiburg): Mentor

• Graduate course -- Algorithm Theory (Winter 2015/16 at Uni Freiburg): Teaching Assistant

• Graduate course -- Network Algorithms (Summer 2015 at Uni Freiburg): Tutor 

• Graduate seminar course -- Theory of (Distributed) Computation (Winter 2014/2015 at Uni Freiburg): Mentor

• MH3400 -- Algorithms for Real Worlds (Fall 2013 at NTU): Teaching Assistant

• MH1402 -- Algorithms and Computing II (Spring 2013 at NTU): Teaching Assistant 

• I have also taught several mathematics courses (e.g., Algebra, Linear Programming, Real Analysis, Calculus) to undergraduate students while I was a lecturer at Vivekananda College for Women, University of Calcutta    

Current PhD Students: 

• Prabhat Kumar Chand, SRF at ISI Kolkata 

Graduated PhD Students: 

• Manish Kumar (graduated in Dec, 2023 from ISI Kolkata)

Current and Past Postdocs/Visiting Scientist: 

• Archak Das (current)

• Sumathi Sivasubramaniam (past)

• Kaustav Bose (past)

• Debasish Pattanayak (past)

• Subhash Bhagat (past)

  Conference Committee:   

• • General Chair: 20th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Intelligent Technology (ICDCIT), 2024.

  • Program Committee Co-Chair: 19th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Intelligent Technology (ICDCIT), 2023.

  • Publicity Co-Chair: ICDCN 2020.

  • Program committee member: ICDCN 2024, ICDCN 2023, ICDCN 2022, ICDCIT 2022, SSS 2020, ICDCN 2020, Poster Session of COMSNETS 2020, NSysS 2019, SPACE 2019, ICDCN 2019. 

  Reviewer: 

    I am happy to have served as an (external) reviewer for the following Journals and Conferences: 

    Journals 

        ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG)

        Distributed Computing Journal (DC)

        The VLDB Journal (VLDB)

       Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE)

        IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC)

        IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS)

        Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) 

        Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC) 

 Information and Computation

        ACM Transactions on the Web

        Information Processing Letters (IPL)

        Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM) 

        The Knowledge Engineering Review 

     Conferences   

        ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA)

        ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC)

        ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA)

        International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP)

        SIAM Symposium on Simplicity in Algorithms (SOSA)

        International Symposium on DIStributed Computing (DISC) 

        IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS)

        IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)

        International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN)

        International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO) 

          Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS)

        IEEE International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS)

        International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS)

        ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD)

        IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE)

        International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Networks (ALGOSENSORS)

        International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN) 

        International Conference and Workshop on Algorithms and Computation (WALCOM)

        International Conference on Algorithms and Discrete Applied Mathematics (CALDAM) 

        IEEE SENSORS 

Other Information: 

• I have co-supervised a Master's thesis and supervised a bachelor's thesis at University of Freiburg. 

• Cryptography (in particular, Public Key Cryptography) is another favourite topic of mine. My master dissertation was on Elliptic Curve Cryptography, advisor was Prof. Rana Barua at ISI, Kolkata. I have continued with the project as a research scientist for another six months after the master's degree. 

• My Erdős number is 3 (one possible path is: I---Gopal Pandurangan---Prasad Tetali---Paul Erdős)                                                                                               

Office/Contact Address: 

Room: Deshmukh Bhavan - 403

R. C. Bose Centre for Cryptology and Security 

Indian Statistical Institute 

C. D. Deshmukh Bhavan

203, B. T. Road, Kolkata 700108, India.

Email: anisurpm (@gmail,com), molla (@isical,ac,in)

Phone: +91 33 2575 2038