Recent News

• • April 2023: My paper Optimal Codes Detecting Deletions in Concatenated Binary Strings Applied to Trace Reconstruction got accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions in Information Theory.

  • April 2023: My paper Fast and Straggler-Tolerant Distributed SGD with Reduced Computation Load got accepted to
    IEEE ISIT 2023.

  • April 2023: Invited talk on “Optimal Codes Detecting Deletions Applied to Coded Trace Reconstruction” at the I3S Seminar in Côte d'Azur University, Sophia Antipolis, France.

  • March 2023: Invited talk on “Coded Trace Reconstruction Over Channels with Small Deletion Probabilities” at the GdR ISIS Workshop on Advances in DNA Storage in Paris, France.

  • February 2023: My paper Codes Correcting Burst and Arbitrary Erasures for Reliable Low-Latency Communication got accepted to IEEE ICASSP 2023.

  • February 2023: Invited talk on “Deletion-detecting Codes Applied to Coded Trace Reconstruction” at the Information Theory and Applications (ITA) Workshop in San Diego, USA.

  • November 2022: Invited talk on “Adaptive Stochastic Gradient Descent for Straggler-Tolerant Distributed Learning” at CY Cergy Paris University, France.

  • November 2022: Talk on “Introduction to Federated Learning” at Aalto University, Finland.

  • April 2022: My paper Coding for Trace Reconstruction Over Multiple Channels With Vanishing Deletion Probabilities got accepted to IEEE ISIT 2022. 

  • May 2021: My two papers got accepted to IEEE ISIT 2021: 

1. S. Kas Hanna and R. Bitar, Detecting Deletions and Insertions in Concatenated Strings with Optimal Redundancy.

2. R. Bitar, S. Kas Hanna, N. Polianskii, and I. Vorobyev, Optimal Codes Correcting Localized Deletions. 

• April 2021: My paper Codes for Correcting Localized Deletions  appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

• October 2020: Joined Technical University of Munich (TUM) as a postdoctoral researcher.

• September 2020: Obtained my Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University, Ph.D. thesis: Guess & Check Codes for Deletions, Insertions, and Synchronization.

• May 2020: Presented my paper Adaptive Distributed Stochastic Gradient Descent for Minimizing Delay in the Presence of Stragglers at IEEE ICASSP 2020 (Video Presentation).

Short Bio

• • Joined the Technical University of Munich (TUM) as a senior researcher and lecturer in October 2020.

  • Obtained my Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA in
    September 2020.

  • Worked as a Teaching and Research Assistant from September 2015 till September 2020 in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Rutgers University and Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

  • Visited Technical University of Berlin as a researcher during summer 2018.

  • Visited Aalto University in Finland as a researcher during summer 2016. 

  • Received my master's degree in Information and Communication Engineering from the Lebanese University - Doctoral School in 2015.

  • Received my engineering diploma in Telecommunication and Computer Engineering from the Lebanese University Faculty of Engineering in 2015.

Research Interests

Primary Interests

• • Reliability in Communication and Storage

  • Distributed Machine Learning

  • DNA-based Storage

  • Low-latency Communications

Secondary Interests

• • Distributed Computing

  • File Synchronization

  • Information-theoretic Privacy