Aaron Sidford
Associate Professor of Management Science and Engineering and of Computer Science
Academic Appointments
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Associate Professor, Management Science and Engineering
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Associate Professor, Computer Science
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My research interests lie broadly in the optimization, the theory of computation, and the design and analysis of algorithms. I am particularly interested in work at the intersection of continuous optimization, graph theory, numerical linear algebra, and data structures.
2025-26 Courses
- Combinatorial Optimization
CME 310, CS 261, MS&E 315 (Win) - Introduction to Optimization (Accelerated)
MS&E 111X, MS&E 211X (Spr) -
Independent Studies (9)
- Advanced Reading and Research
CS 499 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Advanced Reading and Research
CS 499P (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Curricular Practical Training
CS 390A (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Curricular Practical Training
CS 390B (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Curricular Practical Training
CS 390C (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Directed Reading and Research
MS&E 408 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Independent Project
CS 399 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Ph.D. Research
CME 400 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Research
PHYSICS 490 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Advanced Reading and Research
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Prior Year Courses
2024-25 Courses
- Combinatorial Optimization
CME 310, CS 261, MS&E 315 (Win) - Introduction to Optimization (Accelerated)
MS&E 111X, MS&E 211X (Spr) - Optimization Algorithms
CME 334, CS 369O, MS&E 312 (Aut)
2023-24 Courses
- Introduction to Optimization (Accelerated)
MS&E 111X, MS&E 211X (Spr) - Optimization Algorithms
CME 334, CS 369O, MS&E 312 (Win)
2022-23 Courses
- Introduction to Optimization (Accelerated)
ENGR 62X, MS&E 111X, MS&E 211X (Spr) - Optimization Algorithms
CME 334, CS 369O, MS&E 312 (Aut) - Optimization and Algorithmic Paradigms
CS 261 (Win)
- Combinatorial Optimization
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Xiao Mao, Aaron Mishkin -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Jiale Chen, Andrei Graur -
Master's Program Advisor
Eric He, JC Hu, Eric Kuang, Isabella Lee, Neil Parasher, Schwinn Saereesitthipitak, Yuxin Wu -
Doctoral Dissertation Co-Advisor (AC)
Ishani Karmarkar, Chenyi Zhang -
Doctoral (Program)
Liam O'Carroll, Ta-Wei Tu
All Publications
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Ultrasparse Ultrasparsifiers and Faster Laplacian System Solvers
ACM TRANSACTIONS ON ALGORITHMS
2025; 21 (3)
View details for DOI 10.1145/3593809
View details for Web of Science ID 001543243600007
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Extracting Dual Solutions via Primal Optimizers
edited by Meka, R.
SCHLOSS DAGSTUHL, LEIBNIZ CENTER INFORMATICS. 2025
View details for DOI 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.29
View details for Web of Science ID 001532717300029
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Efficient Convex Optimization Requires Superlinear Memory
JOURNAL OF THE ACM
2024; 71 (6)
View details for DOI 10.1145/3689208
View details for Web of Science ID 001391326700006
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Incremental Approximate Maximum Flow on Undirected Graphs in Subpolynomial Update Time
edited by Woodruff, D. P.
SIAM. 2024: 2980-2998
View details for Web of Science ID 001267398700017
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UNIT CAPACITY MAXFLOW IN ALMOST m 4 / TIME
SIAM JOURNAL ON COMPUTING
2024; 53 (6): OCS20175-OCS20204
View details for DOI 10.1137/20M1383525
View details for Web of Science ID 001406377200010
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Near-Optimal Dynamic Rounding of Fractional Matchings in Bipartite Graphs
edited by Mohar, B., Shinkar, O'Donnell, R.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2024: 59-70
View details for DOI 10.1145/3618260.3649648
View details for Web of Science ID 001254099900008
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Sparsifying Generalized Linear Models
edited by Mohar, B., Shinkar, O'Donnell, R.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2024: 1665-1675
View details for DOI 10.1145/3618260.3649684
View details for Web of Science ID 001254099900153
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A Whole New Ball Game: A Primal Accelerated Method for Matrix Games and Minimizing the Maximum of Smooth Functions
edited by Woodruff, D. P.
SIAM. 2024: 3685-3723
View details for Web of Science ID 001267398701007
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Towards optimal running timesfor optimal transport
OPERATIONS RESEARCH LETTERS
2024; 52
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.orl.2023.11.007
View details for Web of Science ID 001139143900001
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Sparsifying Sums of Norms
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 1953-1962
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00119
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900113
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Towards Optimal Effective Resistance Estimation
edited by Oh, A., Neumann, T., Globerson, A., Saenko, K., Hardt, M., Levine, S.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001229826605010
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Quantum Speedups for Zero-Sum Games via Improved Dynamic Gibbs Sampling
edited by Krause, A., Brunskill, E., Cho, K., Engelhardt, B., Sabato, S., Scarlett, J.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001206894303001
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Moments, Random Walks, and Limits for Spectrum Approximation
edited by Neu, G., Rosasco, L.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001222719105020
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Semi-Random Sparse Recovery in Nearly-Linear Time
edited by Neu, G., Rosasco, L.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001222719102016
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Improved girth approximation in weighted undirected graphs
edited by Bansal, N., Nagarajan
SIAM. 2023: 2242-2255
View details for Web of Science ID 001288501200173
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Parallel Submodular Function Minimization
edited by Oh, A., Neumann, T., Globerson, A., Saenko, K., Hardt, M., Levine, S.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001227224006045
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Dynamic Maxflow via Dynamic Interior Point Methods
edited by Servedio, R. A., Saha, B.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2023: 1215-1228
View details for DOI 10.1145/3564246.3585135
View details for Web of Science ID 001064640700100
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Chaining, Group Leverage Score Overestimates, and Fast Spectral Hypergraph Sparsification
edited by Servedio, R. A., Saha, B.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2023: 196-206
View details for DOI 10.1145/3564246.3585136
View details for Web of Science ID 001064640700017
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A Deterministic Almost-Linear Time Algorithm for Minimum-Cost Flow
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 503-514
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00037
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900031
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Matrix Completion in Almost-Verification Time
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 2102-2128
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00129
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900123
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Singular Value Approximation and Sparsifying Random Walks on Directed Graphs
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 846-854
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00054
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900048
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ReSQueing Parallel and Private Stochastic Convex Optimization
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 2031-2058
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00124
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900118
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Structured Semidefinite Programming for Recovering Structured Preconditioners
edited by Oh, A., Neumann, T., Globerson, A., Saenko, K., Hardt, M., Levine, S.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2023
View details for Web of Science ID 001229826600022
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Sparse Submodular Function Minimization
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2023: 2071-2080
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS57990.2023.00126
View details for Web of Science ID 001137125900120
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Improved Iteration Complexities for Overconstrained p-Norm Regression
edited by Leonardi, S., Gupta, A.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2022: 529-542
View details for DOI 10.1145/3519935.3519971
View details for Web of Science ID 000852709400044
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Improved Lower Bounds for Submodular Function Minimization
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2022: 245-254
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS54457.2022.00030
View details for Web of Science ID 000909382900023
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RECAPP: Crafting a More Efficient Catalyst for Convex Optimization
edited by Chaudhuri, K., Jegelka, S., Song, L., Szepesvari, C., Niu, G., Sabato, S.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2022
View details for Web of Science ID 000899944902032
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Faster Maxflow via Improved Dynamic Spectral Vertex Sparsifiers
edited by Leonardi, S., Gupta, A.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2022: 543-556
View details for DOI 10.1145/3519935.3520068
View details for Web of Science ID 000852709400045
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Deterministic Approximation of Random Walks in Small Space
THEORY OF COMPUTING
2021; 17
View details for DOI 10.4086/toc.2021.v017a004
View details for Web of Science ID 000702767600002
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Variance reduced value iteration and faster algorithms for solving Markov decision processes
NAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS
2021
View details for DOI 10.1002/nav.21992
View details for Web of Science ID 000642314100001
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Lower bounds for finding stationary points II: first-order methods
MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING
2021; 185 (1-2): 315–55
View details for DOI 10.1007/s10107-019-01431-x
View details for Web of Science ID 000608923300010
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Minimum Cost Flows, MDPs, and l(1)-Regression in Nearly Linear Time for Dense Instances
edited by Khuller, S., Williams, V. V.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2021: 859-869
View details for DOI 10.1145/3406325.3451108
View details for Web of Science ID 000810492500079
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Towards Tight Bounds on the Sample Complexity of Average-reward MDPs
edited by Meila, M., Zhang, T.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2021
View details for Web of Science ID 000683104605008
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DERANDOMIZATION BEYOND CONNECTIVITY: UNDIRECTED LAPLACIAN SYSTEMS IN NEARLY LOGARITHMIC SPACE
SIAM JOURNAL ON COMPUTING
2021; 50 (6): 1892-1922
View details for DOI 10.1137/20M134109X
View details for Web of Science ID 000748782500005
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Lower bounds for finding stationary points I
MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING
2020; 184 (1-2): 71–120
View details for DOI 10.1007/s10107-019-01406-y
View details for Web of Science ID 000578114700003
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Solving Discounted Stochastic Two-Player Games with Near-Optimal Time and Sample Complexity
edited by Chiappa, S., Calandra, R.
ADDISON-WESLEY PUBL CO. 2020
View details for Web of Science ID 000559931303021
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Efficiently Solving MDPs with Stochastic Mirror Descent
edited by Daume, H., Singh, A.
JMLR-JOURNAL MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH. 2020
View details for Web of Science ID 000683178505002
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Bipartite Matching in Nearly-linear Time on Moderately Dense Graphs
IEEE. 2020: 919-930
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS46700.2020.00090
View details for Web of Science ID 000652333400082
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Coordinate Methods for Matrix Games
IEEE. 2020: 283-293
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS46700.2020.00035
View details for Web of Science ID 000652333400027
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High-precision Estimation of Random Walks in Small Space
IEEE. 2020: 1295-1306
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS46700.2020.00123
View details for Web of Science ID 000652333400115
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Unit Capacity Maxflow in Almost O(m(4/3)) Time
IEEE. 2020: 119-130
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS46700.2020.00020
View details for Web of Science ID 000652333400012
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Acceleration with a Ball Optimization Oracle
edited by Larochelle, H., Ranzato, M., Hadsell, R., Balcan, M. F., Lin, H.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2020
View details for Web of Science ID 000627697000016
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Fast and Space Efficient Spectral Sparsification in Dynamic Streams
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2020: 1814–33
View details for Web of Science ID 000554408101055
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Near-optimal Approximate Discrete and Continuous Submodular Function Minimization
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2020: 837–53
View details for Web of Science ID 000554408100051
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Solving Tall Dense Linear Programs in Nearly Linear Time
edited by Makarychev, K., Makarychev, Y., Tulsiani, M., Kamath, G., Chuzhoy, J.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2020: 775–88
View details for DOI 10.1145/3357713.3384309
View details for Web of Science ID 000614624700062
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Faster Energy Maximization for Faster Maximum Flow
edited by Makarychev, K., Makarychev, Y., Tulsiani, M., Kamath, G., Chuzhoy, J.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2020: 803–14
View details for DOI 10.1145/3357713.3384247
View details for Web of Science ID 000614624700064
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Constant Girth Approximation for Directed Graphs in Subquadratic Time
edited by Makarychev, K., Makarychev, Y., Tulsiani, M., Kamath, G., Chuzhoy, J.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2020: 1010–23
View details for DOI 10.1145/3357713.3384330
View details for Web of Science ID 000614624700081
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Faster Matroid Intersection
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2019: 1146–68
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS.2019.00072
View details for Web of Science ID 000510015300063
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Efficient Profile Maximum Likelihood for Universal Symmetric Property Estimation
edited by Charikar, M., Cohen, E.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2019: 780–91
View details for DOI 10.1145/3313276.3316398
View details for Web of Science ID 000523199100070
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Memory-Sample Tradeoffs for Linear Regression with Small Error
edited by Charikar, M., Cohen, E.
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2019: 890–901
View details for DOI 10.1145/3313276.3316403
View details for Web of Science ID 000523199100080
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Parallel Reachability in Almost Linear Work and Square Root Depth
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2019: 1664–86
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS.2019.00098
View details for Web of Science ID 000510015300092
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Principal Component Projection and Regression in Nearly Linear Time through Asymmetric SVRG
edited by Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Beygelzimer, A., d'Alche-Buc, F., Fox, E., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2019
View details for Web of Science ID 000534424303081
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A General Framework for Symmetric Property Estimation
edited by Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Beygelzimer, A., d'Alche-Buc, F., Fox, E., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2019
View details for Web of Science ID 000535866904013
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Complexity of Highly Parallel Non-Smooth Convex Optimization
edited by Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Beygelzimer, A., d'Alche-Buc, F., Fox, E., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2019
View details for Web of Science ID 000535866905056
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Variance Reduction for Matrix Games
edited by Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Beygelzimer, A., d'Alche-Buc, F., Fox, E., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2019
View details for Web of Science ID 000535866903006
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A Direct O(1/) Iteration Parallel Algorithm for Optimal Transport
edited by Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Beygelzimer, A., d'Alche-Buc, F., Fox, E., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2019
View details for Web of Science ID 000535866903004
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ACCELERATED METHODS FOR NONCONVEX OPTIMIZATION
SIAM JOURNAL ON OPTIMIZATION
2018; 28 (2): 1751–72
View details for DOI 10.1137/17M1114296
View details for Web of Science ID 000436991600031
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Approximating Cycles in Directed Graphs: Fast Algorithms for Girth and Roundtrip Spanners
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2018: 1374–92
View details for Web of Science ID 000483921200092
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Stability of the Lanczos Method for Matrix Function Approximation
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2018: 1605–24
View details for Web of Science ID 000483921200106
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Efficient (O)over-tilde(n/epsilon) Spectral Sketches for the Laplacian and its Pseudoinverse
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2018: 2487–2503
View details for Web of Science ID 000483921200160
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Variance Reduced Value Iteration and Faster Algorithms for Solving Markov Decision Processes
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2018: 770–87
View details for Web of Science ID 000483921200051
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Exploiting Numerical Sparsity for Efficient Learning : Faster Eigenvector Computation and Regression
edited by Bengio, S., Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Grauman, K., CesaBianchi, N., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2018
View details for Web of Science ID 000461823305030
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Near-Optimal Time and Sample Complexities for Solving Markov Decision Processes with a Generative Model
edited by Bengio, S., Wallach, H., Larochelle, H., Grauman, K., CesaBianchi, N., Garnett, R.
NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS (NIPS). 2018
View details for Web of Science ID 000461823305022
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Coordinate Methods for Accelerating l(infinity) Regression and Faster Approximate Maximum Flow
edited by Thorup, M.
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2018: 922–33
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS.2018.00091
View details for Web of Science ID 000455014500082
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Solving Directed Laplacian Systems in Nearly-Linear Time through Sparse LU Factorizations
edited by Thorup, M.
IEEE COMPUTER SOC. 2018: 898–909
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS.2018.00089
View details for Web of Science ID 000455014500080
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Parallelizing Stochastic Gradient Descent for Least Squares Regression: Mini-batching, Averaging, and Model Misspecification
JOURNAL OF MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH
2018; 18
View details for Web of Science ID 000438190100001
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SINGLE PASS SPECTRAL SPARSIFICATION IN DYNAMIC STREAMS
SIAM JOURNAL ON COMPUTING
2017; 46 (1): 456-477
View details for DOI 10.1137/141002281
View details for Web of Science ID 000396677400017
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Derandomization Beyond Connectivity: Undirected Laplacian Systems in Nearly Logarithmic Space
IEEE. 2017: 801–12
View details for DOI 10.1109/FOCS.2017.79
View details for Web of Science ID 000417425300070
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Subquadratic Submodular Function Minimization
edited by Hatami, H., McKenzie, P., King
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2017: 1220–31
View details for DOI 10.1145/3055399.3055419
View details for Web of Science ID 000440317600107
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2675-7610