Chandra Chekuri

Contact Information

3228 Siebel Center, 201 N. Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
“lastname”@illinois.edu
217-265-0705 (office)
Support staff.

Past Positions

May 2014 – August 2017: Director of Graduate Program, Dept of Computer Science.
Sept 1998 – June 2006: Member of Technical Staff (MTS), Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies.
Sept 1993 - August 1998: PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department of Stanford University. Home page of the Theory Group.
June 1989 - June 1993: B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras .

Teaching

Fall 2024: Topics in Graph Algorithms (CS 598)
Spring 2025: Algorithms and Models of Computation (CS/ECE 374)

Algorithms and Models of Computation: Spring 2023, Spring 2021 (with Patrick Lin), Fall 2018*, Spring 2017*, Fall 2015 (with Manoj Prabhakaran), Spring 2015 (with Lenny Pitt)
Algorithms for Big Data: Fall 2022*, Fall 2020, Spring 2019*, Fall 2014
Combinatorial Optimization: Spring 2022, Spring 2010* (topics course)
Approximation Algorithms: Fall 2021, Spring 2018*, Spring 2016*, Fall 2013*, Spring 2011*, Spring 2009, Fall 2006
Topics in Graph Algorithms: Spring 2020
Algorithms: Fall 2020 (with Michael Forbes), Fall 2019 (with Michael Forbes), Fall 2016 (with Ruta Mehta)
(Undergraduate) Algorithms: Spring 2014*, Spring 2012, Fall 2010, Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007
Graduate Algorithms: Fall 2011*
Algorithmic Game Theory: Spring 2008
Introduction to Theory of Computation: Spring 2007

*: students once in a while think I teach well. My daughter is not as complimentary.
Scott Fisher Teaching Award (for year 2022-23) from CS Department
Notes on introductory material, mainly for me to access quickly: induction, graph algorithms, basic probability, fooling sets.
Notes and slides on graduate level topics: approximation algorithms, combinatorial optimization, algorithms for big data

Research Interests and Publications

theoretical computer science
design and analysis of algorithms
discrete and combinatorial optimization
approximation algorithms
mathematical programming
algorithmic applications

Most of my papers and a few talks are available online. Google Scholar profile.

Student Advising

Tanvi Bajpai: PhD advisee (co-advised with Eshwar Chandrasekharan)
ElFarouk Harb: PhD advisee (co-advised with Sariel Har-Peled)
Rhea Jain: PhD advisee
Weihao Zhu: PhD advisee (co-advised with Karthik Chandrasekharan)

Vasilis Livanos: PhD, Dec 2023 (co-advised with Ruta Mehta). Postdoc
Manuel Torres: PhD, June 2023. JP Morgan.
Binghui (Alan) Cheng: senior thesis, Spring 2021.
Shovik Guha: senior thesis, Fall 2019.
Kent Quanrud: PhD, August 2019 (joint with Sariel Har-Peled). Purdue CS.
Xilin Yu: MS, August 2019 (thesis supervised by Tandy Warnow). Amazon → Google
Vivek Madan: PhD, August 2018. Georgia Tech ARC postdoc → Amazon.
Shalmoli Gupta: PhD, August 2018. Facebook
Chao Xu: PhD, May 2018 (jointly supervised with Karthik Chandrasekaran). Yahoo! Research → Grab → Voleon → UESTC, China
Mark Idleman: MS, July 2017. SE in bay area
Shweta Patwa: MS, May 2017. PhD, Duke
Sanchit Kalhan: senior thesis, Spring 2016. MS at UWaterloo → PhD student at Northwestern
Alina Ene: PhD, July 2013. Postdoc at Princeton → Univ. of Warwick → Boston Univ.
Ali Vakilian: MS, July 2013. MIT PhD → Research Assistant Professor at TTI Chicago
Ben Moseley: PhD, July 2012. TTI Chicago → Washington University, St. Louis → Tepper School of Business, CMU
Sungjin Im: PhD, June 2012. Duke → UC Merced
Thapanapong Rukkanchanunt: senior thesis, Fall 2011.
Nitish Korula: PhD, July 2010. Google (Research)
Matthew Gregory: senior thesis, Spring 2009.
Emily Kyle Fox: senior thesis, Spring 2008. UIUC PhD student → ICERM, Brown → Duke → UT Dallas
Summer interns at Bell Labs: Rajat Bhattacharjee, Amit Chakrabarti, Marcelo Mydlarz (along with Bruce Shepherd), An Zhu

Professional Activities

Conference/workshop program committees and organization

Current and future: SODA 2025, ESA 2025
Past: STOC 2023, FSTTCS 2021 (Track A PC Chair), FSTTCS 2020, STOC 2020, Bellairs Workshop 2019, SOSA 2019, FSTTCS 2018, Simons workshop, STOC 2016, BIRS Workshop on Approximation 2014, SODA 2014 (PC Chair), APPROX 2013, IPCO 2013, SODA 2012, BIRS Approx. Workshop 2011 APPROX 2010, COCOON 2010, ISMP 2009, NetCod 2009, ITW 2008, FAW 2008, ISAAC 2007, STOC 2007, APPROX 2007, APPROX 2005 (PC Chair), FSTTCS 2004, APPROX 2004, FOCS 2003, APPROX 2003.

    Journals:
      Associate Editor: SIAM Journal on Computing. Jan 2020 -- current.
      Associate Editor: Mathematics of Operations Research. March 2013 -- Dec 2018.
      Associate Editor: Mathematical Programming Ser A. Jan 2009 -- Jan 2016.
      Associate Editor: Journal of Computer System Sciences (JCSS). Nov 2005 -- March 2013.
      Area Editor: Springer Encyclopedia on Algorithms.
      Guest co-editor for Algorithmica special issue on selected papers from APPROX/RANDOM 2005.
      Guest co-editor for JCSS special issue on selected papers from FOCS 2003