Homepage Benjamin Doerr

Since August 2013:
Professor for Computer Science
Laboratoire d'Informatique (LIX), École Polytechnique
Office: Bâtiment Alan Turing, room 2141 [map]
How to address mail to me: LIX - UMR 7161, Benjamin DOERR, 1 rue Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, Bâtiment Alan Turing, CS35003, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Phone: +33 1 77 57 80 16.
Email: lastname@lix.polytechnique.fr
Please use this homepage (which I'll partially update) until I created one at the new place!

Senior Researcher
Department 1: Algorithms and Complexity, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Campus E 14, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.

Professor for Computer Science
Department of Computer Science, Universität des Saarlandes, Campus E 13, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.

News

28.10.2013: My PhD student Mahmoud Fouz (jointly supervised with Markus Bläser) won the Dr.-Eduard-Martin prize for his outstanding PhD. Congratulations!!!
Our paper "Lessons from the Black-Box: Fast crossover-based Genetic Algorithms" won the best paper award at GECCO 2013.
Our Dagstuhl-Seminar "Epidemic Algorithms and Processes: From Theory to Applications" was accepted and will take place January 21-25, 2013.
Our results on rumor spreading in social networks (cf. our STOC paper) have been accepted for publication in the Communications of the ACM.
Session organizer at the 3rd Brazilian-German Frontiers of Science and Technology Symposium (BRAGFOST)
Theory of Randomized Search Heuristics published! (direct link to table of contents and first chapter)

Research Interests

Probabilistic methods in discrete mathematics and computer science
Dissemination in networks, epidemic algorithms
Guessing games and their connection with computer science
Algorithm Engineering
Quasirandomness
Evolutionary algorithms, randomized search heuristics

Current Activities

Member of the advisory board of the national student competition in computer science (Bundeswettbewerb Informatik)
Coordinator of the research area Foundations and Discrete Mathematics at MPI
Ombudsman of MPI
Member of the DFG priority programme 1307 "Algorithm Engineering", project "Algorithm Engineering for Randomized Rounding Procedures" (2007-2013)
Organizer of the Dagstuhl-Seminar Epidemic Algorithms and Processes: From Theory to Applications (21.-25.1.2013, with Robert Elsässer, Pierre Fraigniaud and Rachid Guerraoui) and Theory of Evolutionary Algorithms (1.-5.7.2013, with Nikolaus Hansen, Jonathan Shapiro and Darrel Whitley)
Editorial boards: Journal of Complexity, Theoretical Computer Science, RAIRO-Theoretical Informatics and Applications, Information Processing Letters, Evolutionary Computation, Natural Computing
Program Committees: ICALP 2016, FOCI 2015, ESA 2015, GECCO 2015, CEC 2015, FOGA 2015, PPSN 2014, GECCO 2014 (chair of the theory track), CEC 2014, SEA 2014, ICALP 2014, EvoCOP 2014, ICARIS 2013, GECCO 2013, CEC 2013, FOGA 2013, GECCO 2012, ICALP 2012, SPAA 2012, ...
previous activities

PhD Students

Former PhD Students

Tobias Friedrich (2007, now full professor at U Jena)
Edda Happ (2009, now working for Deutsche Bahn)
Ariel Levavi (supported by a DAAD stipend, continued her PhD at UCSD)
Daniel Johannsen (2010, postdoc at Tel Aviv U)
Anna Huber (2010, now research associate at U Durham)
Markus Wagner (jointly supervised with Frank Neumann, continues his PhD at University of Adelaide, now lecturer there)
Carola Winzen (2011, supported by a Google Europe Fellowship in Randomized Algorithms, now permanent researcher at CNRS, Paris 6)
Mahmoud Fouz (2012, jointly supervised with Markus Bläser)
Claudio Magni (funded by Siemens AG, moved to Google)
Karolina Soltys (moved to industries)
Christian Klein (2013)

Teaching

Winter 2016: MPRI 2.18.1 Distributed computing in networks (joint with Pierre Fraigniaud and Adrian Kosowski, part of the Parisian Master in Computer Science (MPRI))
Winter 2016: INF561 Randomization in Computer Science: Games, Networks, Epidemic and Evolutionary Algorithms (Ecole Polytechnique; sorry, the web pages for courses at the Ecole Polytechnique have moved to the access-restriced Moodle system)
Autumn 2015: INF421 Design and Analysis of Algorithms (Ecole Polytechnique)
Winter 2015: MPRI 2.18.1 Distributed computing in networks (joint with Pierre Fraigniaud, part of the Parisian Master in Computer Science (MPRI))
Winter 2015: INF561 Randomization in Computer Science: Games, Networks, Epidemic and Evolutionary Algorithms (Ecole Polytechnique; sorry, the web pages for courses at the Ecole Polytechnique have moved to the access-restriced Moodle system)
Autumn 2014: INF421 Design and Analysis of Algorithms (Ecole Polytechnique)
Spring 2014: Stage de recherche (research internship) for students at the LIX. I offered a topic on epidemic algorithms to be conducted at MPII and LIX. I am happy to offer other topics close to my research (epidemic algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, combinatorial games) that could be done at LIX, MPII, Kopenhagen, Munich, Cambridge, ... Send me an email or talk to me if you're interested.
Winter 2014: INF561 Randomization in Computer Science: Games, Networks, Epidemic and Evolutionary Algorithms (Ecole Polytechnique)
Autumn 2013: MPRI 2.18.1 Distributed computing in networks (joint with Pierre Fraigniaud, part of the Parisian Master in Computer Science (MPRI))
Autumn 2013: Supervisor of the project Analyse des algorithmes évolutionnaires as part of the course INF571 Projet personnel en laboratoire. The results are going to appear as Colin, Doerr, Ferey. Monotonic Functions in EC: Anything but Monotone! Proceedings of GECCO 2014.
Winter 2012/2013: Research immersion lab "multi-objective evolutionary computation"
Winter 2012/2013: Randomized Methods in Computer Science
Summer 2012: Guest professor at DTU Copenhagen
Previous teaching
I have some nice topics for bachelor, master, diploma and PhD theses.

Offers

We are constantly looking for good people at all levels. See AG1 offers for more details.
You may contact me directly if (i) you plan to work in the field of discrete mathematics and foundations of computer science and (ii) you have convincing arguments for your excellence. To avoid spamming, please make clear why you think that you fulfill these points. To avoid duplicate work, please state to which other members of AG1 you also sent an application. Failure to do so results in your application being considered as spam. To indicate that you read these rules and not just googled my email address, please use as subject of your mail "[your intended subject] after looking at your fantastic homepage". Sorry for the harsh rules, but I get an enormous number of applications, many of which turn out to be sent to the wrong address.
Sorry, our department (AG1) does not offer summer internships, 3 month projects, etc. for external students.