Waldo Gálvez

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at Universidad de Concepción (UdeC), since March 2025. From 2021 to 2024, I was part of the Institute of Engineering Sciences at Universidad de O'Higgins (UOH) in Rancagua, Chile, first as a postdoc and then as an Assistant Professor. Before that, I worked as a Postdoc at the Chair of Algorithms and Complexity at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), led by Prof. Susanne Albers, for almost two years. I received my PhD (2019) from the Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Inteligenza Artificiale (IDSIA) and Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) in Lugano, Switzerland, where I was very fortunate to be advised by Prof. Fabrizio Grandoni. Before IDSIA, I received my master's and bachelor's degree in Applied Math from Universidad de Chile under the wise guidance of Prof. José Verschae.

My research focuses mainly on the Design and Analysis of Algorithms, and more specifically on online, parameterized and approximation algorithms for packing and network design problems. My current projects involve studying Geometric Packing problems (e.g. Geometric Knapsack, Independent Set of Rectangles, Strip Packing) and their connections to Scheduling settings where jobs must use multiple machines. Recently, I have also been studying how to incorporate Diversity and Fairness constraints to classical Combinatorial Optimization problems.

• I am part of the Organizing Committee for the 6th Workshop on Optimization and Algorithms (WOA 2026), to be held at Universidad de Concepción in December this year. Stay tuned for more information!

• Together with prof. Jérémy Barbay, we are organizing the Discrete Mathematics Seminar group at Universidad de Concepción. A webpage will soon be available with information about past and upcoming talks. 

• Our paper "Computing Diverse and Nice Triangulations", joint work with GiBeom Park, Mayank Goswami, Arturo Merino, and Meng-Tsung Tsai, received the Best Paper Award at FCT 2025.

• I gave a talk at the MIP Workshop South America 2025 in Viña del Mar, Chile, from December 9 to 12, 2025.

• I chaired the XX Summer School on Discrete Mathematics, which took place in Viña del Mar, Chile, from January 6 to 10, 2025. 

• Leonardo Lovera, MSc in Computer Sciences UdeC (expected March 2027)

• Claudia Cser, Informatics Engineering UdeC (September 2026)

• Roberto Oliva, MSc in Operations Management UOH, co-advised with Víctor Verdugo (January 2025).

• Benjamín Guajardo, Informatics Engineering UOH (January 2025).

• Felipe Salas, Industrial Engineering UOH (January 2025).

• Manuel Muñoz, Informatics Engineering UOH, co-advised with Arturo Merino (January 2025).

• Carlos Bozo,  MSc in Mathematical Modeling and Artificial Intelligence UOH, co-advised with Víctor Verdugo (November 2024). 

• Nicolás Muñoz, Informatics Engineering UOH (October 2024).

• Franco Martínez, Industrial Engineering UOH (March 2024).

• Lía Reyes, MSc in Operations Management UOH, co-advised with Víctor Verdugo (January 2024).

• Consuelo González, MSc in Operations Management UOH, co-advised with Víctor Verdugo (January 2024). 

Prior grants that have funded my research include:

• Approximation Algorithms for Two-Dimensional Demand Allocation Problems, 2023-2026, Principal Investigator ("Fondecyt de Iniciación")

• Design and Analysis of Approximation Algorithms for Efficient Energy Management Problems, 2023-2025, Principal Investigator ("Subvención a la Instalación en la Academia").

A copy of my CV can be found here.