Nikhil Bansal named Fellow of the ACM

Professor Nikhil Bansal has been named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This title is the organization’s most prestigious member grade, recognizing the top 1% of ACM members based on their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology.

Bansal’s research predominantly explores algorithm design, with his work focusing on combinatorics, discrete optimization, approximation algorithms, and more. Some of his recent projects include applying techniques from semidefinite programming to algorithmic discrepancy, and developing new ways to deal with uncertainty in scheduling algorithms. 

Bansal joined CSE in Fall 2021 as the first Patrick C. Fischer Professor of Theoretical Computer Science. Before that, he was a researcher at CWI, Amsterdam and a professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He earned his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in 2003, and worked at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center until 2011, where he managed the Algorithms group.

Bansal’s work has been published by a number of leading international conferences, with several of his publications winning best paper awards. In addition to these achievements, he lends his expertise on the editorial boards of top journals including the Journal of the ACM and Theory of Computing.