Ph.D. in Combinatorics & Optimization
Assistant Professor
Illinois State University
Department of Mathematics
spkafer AT ilstu.edu
Research Interests
Linear Optimization
Theory of the Simplex Method
Combinatorial Optimization
Since August 2025:
2023 - 2025:
Winter 2023:
2017 - 2022:
2015 - 2017:
Assistant Professor at Illinois State University, Department of Mathematics
Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech, School of Mathematics
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Discrete Optimization: Mathematics, Algorithms, and Computation semester program at ICERM
Ph.D. student at University of Waterloo's Department of Combinatorics & Optimization
Masters student at University of Waterloo's Department of Combinatorics & Optimization
Authors listed in alphabetical order
E. Bach, A. E. Black, S. Huiberts, S. Kafer, Beyond Smoothed Analysis: Analyzing the Simplex Method by the Book (STOC 2026)
S. Borgwardt, N. Crawford, S.Kafer, J. Lee, A. Morrison, On Circuit Imbalance and 0/1 Circuits for Coloring and Spanning Forest Problems 2025 (arXiv:2512.05223)
S. Borgwardt, W. Grewe, S. Kafer, J. Lee, L. Sanità On the Hardness of Short and Sign-Compatible Circuit Walks (DAM 2025)
A. Black, J. A. De Loera, S. Kafer, L. Sanità On the Simplex method for 0/1 polytopes (MOR 2024)
J. A. De Loera, S. Kafer, L. Sanità Pivot Rules for Circuit-Augmentation Algorithms in Linear Optimization (SIOPT 2022)
S. Kafer, K. Pashkovich, L. Sanità On the Circuit Diameter of some Combinatorial Polytopes (SIDMA 2019)
V. E. Brimkov, K. Junosza-Szaniawski, S. Kafer, J. Kratochvil, M. Pergel, P. Rzazewski, M. Szczepankiewicz, J. Terhaar
Homothetic polygons and beyond: Maximal cliques in intersection graphs (DAM 2018)
Spring 2026: MAT 145 Calculus I, Illinois State University
Fall 2025: MAT 145 Calculus I, Illinois State University
Spring 2025: MATH 3012 Applied Combinatorics, Georgia Tech
Fall 2024: MATH 1113 Precalculus, Georgia Tech
Spring 2024: MATH 1551 Differential Calculus, Georgia Tech
Fall 2023: MATH 1553 Introduction to Linear Algebra, Georgia Tech
Fall 2022: MATH 1554 Linear Algebra, Georgia Tech
Fall 2021: CO 227 Introduction to Optimization (Non-Specialist Level), University of Waterloo