Illinois faculty and staff at EXCILL3

Current and past Illinois faculty and students at the EXCILL3 meeting at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, August 2016.

Faculty with interests in discrete mathematics

Mathematics Department: József Balogh (jobal @ math.uiuc.edu), Philippe Di Francesco (philippe @ math.uiuc.edu), Zoltán Füredi (emeritus) (z-furedi @ math.uiuc.edu), Alexandr Kostochka (kostochk @ math.uiuc.edu), Misha Lavrov (lavrov @ illinois.edu), Paul Weichsel (emeritus), (weichsel @ math.uiuc.edu), Douglas West (emeritus) (west @ math.uiuc.edu), Alexander Yong (ayong @ math.uiuc.edu).

Others with related interests include Bruce Reznick (reznick @ math.uiuc.edu), Paul Schupp (emeritus) (schupp @ math.uiuc.edu).

Computer Science Department: Chandra Chekuri, Jeff Erickson, Sariel Har-Peled, Sheldon Jacobson, Lenny Pitt, and Manoj Prabhakaran.

Electrical & Computer Engineering Department: Richard Blahut, Donna Brown, Bruce Hajek, Ralf Koetter, Michael Loui, Dilip Sarwate, and the Applied Computation Theory Group.

Activities

Often we have a working group on research problems. Each summer since 2004 this has taken the form of a REGS group (Research Experiences for Graduate Students) supported initially by our department's VIGRE grant, subsequently by departmental funding, and later by our MCTP grant. The grant has now ended, so for the present the REGS program will not continue on a formal basis.

Our weekly seminars include Graph theory and Combinatorics and Algebra-Geometry-Combinatorics. Weekly details are found in the Mathematics Department seminar schedule). Seminars in theoretical computer science in the Computer Science Department also often discuss topics in discrete mathematics.

We organize trips for faculty and students to regional meetings such as MIGHTY (MIdwest GrapH TheorY), MCCCC (Midwest Conference on Combinatorics, Coding, and Cryptography), the Cumberland Conference (on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, and Computing), and special sessions in graph theory or combinatorics at nearby regional AMS meetings.

Courses

These are Mathematics Department course numbers; some of these courses are also cross-listed under Computer Science numbers. (Unfortunately, the University has changed its system of catalog description pages in a way that requires updating links each semester. Therefore, we only direct you to the UI main course page and let you click on from there to find the official catalog announcements. The "course announcement" links here point to more complete descriptions of the most recent offerings of the courses.)

We have a one-semester introduction to combinatorics at the graduate level. This course is suitable for students in other areas seeking an overview of the fundamentals of the area and for students preparing to study more advanced courses in combinatorics.

We rotate several regular graduate courses. These assume some experience in combinatorics; Math 580 suffices for each. Normally, each of these courses is offered once every two years.

Occasional special topics courses:

  • Topics in Combinatorics (Math 595 - Now a single course number for all topics courses) Offerings from the Combinatorics Group have included Algebraic Methods, Additive Number Theory, Coloring Problems for Graphs and Hypergraphs, Combinatorics of Symmetric Functions, Lattices Points and Polytopes, Problems in Combinatorial Geometry, The Grassmanian, and Closure Systems.

Undergraduate/graduate courses:

Present graduate students in combinatorics

  • Derrek Yager (entered 2012) (yager2 @ illinois.edu)
  • Anton Bernsteyn (entered 2014) (bernsht2 @ illinois.edu)
  • Adam Wagner (entered 2014) (zawagne2 @ illinois.edu)
  • Ruth Luo (entered 2014) (ruthluo2 @ illinois.edu)
  • Lina Li (entered 2014) (linali2 @ illinois.edu)
  • Xujun Liu (entered 2015) (xliu150 @ illinois.edu)
  • Emily Heath (entered 2015) (eheath3 @ illinois.edu)
  • Dara Zirlin (entered 2015) (zirlin2 @ illinois.edu)

Past graduates (with year and Ph.D. advisor)

Photo: most of the University of Illinois contingent at the SIAM Discrete Mathematics meeting in Victoria, Canada, in June 2006. Photo: includes six of our students (with names) at an IMA program at Georgia Tech in 2003.

1980s - 5 students; 1990s - 15 students; 2000s - 18 students; 2010s - 32 students.

  • Michelle Delcourt (2017, Balogh)
  • Sarah Loeb (2017, West)
  • Sarka Petrickova (2017, Balogh)
  • Andrew McConvey (2017, Kostochka)
  • Maryam Sharifzadeh (2016, Balogh)
  • Hannah Spinoza (2016, West)
  • Oliver Pechenik (2016, Yong)
  • Michael Santana (2016, Kostochka)
  • Jennifer Wise (2016, West)
  • Hong Liu (2016, Balogh)
  • Thomas Mahoney (2015, West)
  • Daniel McDonald (2015, West)
  • Ben Reiniger (2015, Kostochka)
  • Elyse Yeager (2015, Kostochka)
  • Dominic Searles (2015, Yong)
  • Ilkyoo Choi (2014, Kostochka)
  • Jaehoon Kim (2014, Kostochka)
  • Gregory Puleo (2014, West)
  • Ping Hu (2014, Balogh)
  • Sogol Jahanbekan (2013, West)
  • Matthew Yancey (2013, Kostochka)
  • Fang-Kai (Kyle) Jao (2013, West)
  • Bill Kinnersley (2012, West)
  • Jane Butterfield (2012, Balogh)
  • John Lenz (2011, Balogh)
  • Hehui Wu (2011, West)
  • Timothy LeSaulnier (2011, West)
  • Suil O (2011, West)
  • Reza Zamani (2011, West (CS)
  • Mohit Kumbhat (2011, Kostochka)
  • Younjin Kim (2011, Füredi)
  • Chris Stocker (2011, Kostochka)
  • Wojciech Samotij (2010, Balogh)
  • Kevin Milans (2010, West)
  • Ida Kantor (2010, Füredi)
  • Paul Wenger (2010, West)
  • Lale Ozkahya (2010, Füredi)
  • Michael Barrus (2009, West)
  • Jeong-Ok Choi (2008, West)
  • Naeem Sheikh (2008, Kostochka)
  • Burak Stodolsky (2008, Kostochka)
  • Noah Prince (2008, Balogh) (nprince @ imsa.edu)
  • Jennifer Vandenbussche (2008, West) (jvandenb @ spsu.edu)
  • Qi Liu (2007, West) (qiliu @ gsm.pku.edu.cn)
  • Daniel Cranston (2007, West (CS)) (dcranston @ vcu.edu)
  • Gexin Yu (2006, Kostochka) (gyu @ wm.edu)
  • Weiting Cao (2006, West) (caoweiting @ gmail.com)
  • Hemanshu Kaul (2006, West/Jacobson) (kaul @ math.iit.edu)
  • Kyung-Won Hwang (2005, Füredi) (khwang7 @ kookmin.ac.kr)
  • Kittikorn Nakprasit (2004, Kostochka) (kitnak @ hotmail.com)
  • Jeong-Hyun Kang (2004, Füredi) (jkang @ westga.edu)
  • Seog-Jin Kim (2003, West) (skim12 @ konkuk.ac.kr)
  • Michael Pelsmajer (2002, West) (pelsmajer @ iit.edu)
  • Radhika Ramamurthi (2001, West) (deceased)
  • Tao Jiang (2000, West) (jiangt @ muohio.edu)
  • Ya-Chen Chen (1999, Füredi) (cchen @ math.la.asu.edu)
  • Andre Kundgen (1999, Füredi) (akundgen @ csusm.edu)
  • Maria Axenovich (1999, Füredi) (maria.aksenovich @ kit.edu)
  • Dhruv Mubayi (1998, West) (mubayi @ math.uic.edu)
  • Chris Hartman (1997, West) (hartman @ uafcs.alaska.edu)
  • Glenn Chappell (1996, West) (ffggc @ uaf.edu)
  • Yi-Wu Chang (1994, West) (chang @ math.nccu.edu.tw)
  • Janice Malouf (1994, Füredi) (jmalouf @ cs.csubak.edu)
  • Myung S. Chung (1993, West) (ChungMSB @ aol.com)
  • In-Jen Lin (1993, West) (ijlin @ cs.ntou.edu.tw)
  • Todd G. Will (1993, West) (will.todd @ uwlax.edu)
  • John George (1991, Weichsel) (jgeorge @ gordonstate.edu)
  • Hunter Snevily (1991, West) (deceased)
  • Robin S. Sanders (1990, Weichsel) (sanders @ math.buffalostate.edu)
  • Andre E. Kezdy (1990, West) (kezdy @ louisville.edu)
  • Thomas M. Kratzke (1988, West) (kratzke @ ilog.com)
  • Margaret L. Weaver (1988, West) (cfmlw1 @ eiu.edu)
  • J. Scott Sportsman (1987, Weichsel) (scott_sportsman @ mail.msj.edu)
  • Robert A. Beezer (1984, Weichsel) (beezer @ ups.edu)
  • Paul M. Terwilliger (1982, Weichsel) (terwilli @ math.wisc.edu)

History of Visitors

Long-Term Visitors
  • Robert Jamison (Clemson U), 1/11-6/11
  • Seog-Jin Kim (Konkuk U, South Korea), 1/10-1/11
  • Arash Rafiey (Simon Fraser U.), 8/08-10/08
  • Oleg Borodin (Novosibirsk), 1/05-5/05
  • Peter Hamburger (IU-PU Fort Wayne), 8/03-5/04
  • Dmitry Fon-Der-Flaass (Novosibirsk), 1/03-5/03
  • Vitaly Voloshin (Moldova), 2/02-5/02
  • Nikolai Kuzjurin (Russian Academy of Science, Moscow), 8/01-12/01
  • Dmitry Fon-Der-Flaass (Novosibirsk), 8/00-5/01
  • Jian Shen (Queen's U., U So. Texas), 1/00-6/00
  • Yoshiyasu Ishigami (Tokyo), 8/99-3/01
  • Vitaly Voloshin (Moldova), 2/98-8/98
  • James Haglund, 8/95-5/97
  • Joseph Zaks (Israel), 1/96-5/96
  • Xiaoyun Lu, 8/92-8/94
  • Gyula Katona (Hungarian Academy, Budapest), 1/93-5/93
  • Malay Sen (North Bengal U, India), 8/88-7/89
Postdoctoral Faculty
  • Sujith Vijay (Rutgers), 8/07-5/10
  • Stephen Hartke (Rutgers), 8/04-5/07
  • Jozef Skokan (Emory), 8/00-5/03
  • Tibor Szabo (Ohio St.), 8/97-5/00
Short-Term Visitors (single dates are lecture dates)

2009-2010

  • Michael Stiebitz (TU Ilmenau), 4/20/10
  • Xuding Zhu (Nat. Sun Yat-Sen U, Taiwan) - colloq+2sem), 3/28-4/02/10
  • Tom Trotter (Georgia Tech - colloq+2sem), 2/25-3/05/10

2008-2009

  • Bela Csaba (Western Kentucky U), 4/14/09
  • Peter Horak (U Washington - Tacoma), 10/28/08

2007-2008

  • Ryan Martin (Iowa State U), 4/29/08
  • Andrzei Rucinski (Poznan U), 3/04/08
  • Jeff Wheeler (U. Pittsburgh), 11/27/07
  • Mihai Ciucu (Indiana U), 11/13/07
  • Hal Kierstead (Arizona State U), 11/06/07
  • Bridget Tenney (DePaul U), 10/23/07
  • Ervin Gyori (Math Institute, Hungarian Academy), 10/16/07
  • Jan Vondrak (Princeton U), 10/09/07

2006-2007

  • Carla Savage (North Carolina State U), 4/24/07
  • Rob Ellis (Illinois Institute of Technology), 4/17/07
  • Sergei Bezrukov (U Wisconsin - Superior), 2/20/07
  • Gelasio Salazar (U. San Luis Postosi), 10/03/06

2005-2006

  • Michael Stiebitz (TU Ilmenau), 4/18/06
  • Daniel Kral (Charles U. and Georgia Tech), 3/07/06
  • Tian He (Illinois Wesleyan U.), 2/21/06
  • Michael Plummer (Vanderbilt U.), 2/07/06
  • Ryan Martin (Iowa State U.), 1/24/06
  • Imre Barany (Renyi Institute and University College London), 9/06/05

2004-2005

  • Mark Goldberg (Rensselaer Polytechnic), 4/26/05
  • Carla Savage (North Carolina State, all week), 4/19/05
  • Anthony Hilton (U. Reading), 4/05/05
  • Noah Prince (U. Memphis), 3/08/05
  • Alexander Barvinok (Michigan), 3/03/05
  • Ron Gould (Emory), 2/15/05
  • Jozsef Balogh (Ohio State), 1/28/05
  • Peter Winkler (Dartmouth), 12/13/04
  • Jeno Lehel (U. Memphis), 11/30/04
  • Miklos Simonovits (Hungarian Academy), 11/16/04
  • Joan Hutchinson (Macalester, two-week visit), 11/02/04
  • Stan Wagon (Macalester), 10/28/04
  • Rob Ellis (Texas A&M), 10/26/04
  • Jozsef Balogh (Ohio State), 9/14/04

2003-2004

  • Norihide Tokushige (Ryukyu U. & Emory U.), 4/27/04
  • Paul Wollan (Georgia Tech.), 4/20/04
  • Michael Stiebitz (Technical U. Ilmenau, Germany, all week), 4/13/04
  • Xuding Zhu (Natl. Sun Yat-Sen U., Taiwan - colloq+sem.), 4/07-09/04
  • Gregory Gutin (Royal Holloway, University of London, England), 4/06/04
  • Vera Sos (Hungarian Academy of Science), 3/30/04
  • Sergey Kitaev, (U. Kentucky), 2/24/04
  • Michal Morayne, (Wroclaw U. Tech., Poland), 2/10/04
  • Sergei Bezrukov (U. Wisconsin - Superior), 12/09/03
  • Oleg Pikhurko (Carnegie Mellon U.), 12/02/03
  • Andrew Blinco (Australia & Illinois State U.), 11/18/03
  • Papa Sissokho (Illinois State U.), 11/04/03
  • Tara Holm (U. California - Berkeley), 10/23/03
  • Imre Barany (Hungarian Academy of Science), 10/21/03
  • Judy Walker (U. Nebraska), 10/17/03
  • Herbert Wilf (U. Penn, Trjzinsky Lectures), 10/13-15/03
  • Andras Gyarfas (Hungarian Academy of Science), 10/13/03
  • Bela Bollobas (U. Memphis, colloquium), 10/02/03

2002-2003

  • Laszlo Szekely (U. South Carolina), 4/08/03
  • Michael Plantholt (Illinois State U.), 3/18/03
  • Tom Trotter (Georgia Tech - colloq+sem.), 11/05-07/02
  • Yuejian Peng (Indiana State U.), 10/29/02
  • Dhruv Mubayi (U. Illinois - Chicago), 10/15/02
  • Michael Pelsmajer (Illinois Inst. of Technology), 10/08/02
  • Yi Zhao (U. Illinois - Chicago), 9/24/02
  • Jacques Verstraete (Microsoft, later Waterloo), 9/17/02

2001-2002

  • Sriram Pemmaraju (Iowa State U.), 4/30/02
  • Nancy Eaton (U. Rhode Island), 4/23/02
  • Hal Kierstead (Arizona State U., all week), 4/16/02
  • Michael Albertson (Smith Coll., colloq+sem.), 4/11/02, 4/09/02
  • Akos Seress (Ohio State U.), 4/09/02
  • Michael Stiebitz (Tech. U. Ilmenau, Germany), 4/02/02
  • David Bressoud (Penn State U., colloquium), 3/14/02
  • Vijaya Venkatajalam (Bombay), 3/12/02
  • Noga Alon (Tel Aviv, Coble Lecturer), 3/5-7/02
  • Thomas Boehme (U. North Texas), 2/19/02
  • Benny Sudakov (Princeton U. & IAS), 2/01/02
  • Michael Jacobson (U. Louisville), 1/29/02
  • Rong Luo (West Virginia U., later Middle Tennessee St. U.), 12/04/01
  • Sergei Bezrukov (U. Wisconsin - Superior), 11/13/01
  • Diane Donovan (U. Queensland, Australia), 10/30/01
  • Tomasz Luczak (U. Poznan - Poland, colloquium), 10/11/01
  • Abdollah Khodkar (U. Queensland, Australia), 10/09/01
  • Peter Hamburger (IU-PU Fort Wayne), 10/02/01
  • Benny Sudakov (Princeton U. & IAS), 9/04/01

2000-2001

  • Bjarne Toft (U So. Denmark/Memphis), 5/1/01
  • Penny Haxell (Waterloo), 4/24/01
  • Heather Gavlas (Illinois State U.) 4/21/01
  • Gyula O.H. Katona (Renyi Inst./Memphis), 4/10/01
  • Michal Karonski (Adam Mickiewicz/Emory), 2/20/01 and 2/22/01
  • Van Vu (Microsoft/UCSD), 2/2/01
  • Yuejian Peng (Emory U.), 11/14/00
  • Attila Sali (Budapest/IPFW), 10/31/00
  • Heather Gavlas (Grand Valley St.), 10/26/00
  • Charles Vanden Eynden (Illinois State U.), 10/10/00
  • Vojtech Rodl, (Emory U.), 9/12/00
  • Lubos Thoma (Carnegie Mellon U.), 9/5/00

1999-2000

  • Ed Bertram (Hawaii), 5/25/00
  • Endre Szemeredi (Rutgers U.), 5/9/00
  • Fan Chung Graham (U. Calif. - San Diego), 4/24/00 (talk in CS dept)
  • Irina Perepelitsa (U. Illinois - Chicago), 3/21/00
  • Michael Krivelevich (Tel Aviv U.), 2/8/00
  • Alexander Kelmans (RUTCOR & U. Puerto Rico), 11/16/99 and 11/18/99
  • Gabor Tardos (Renyi Institute, Budapest), 11/9/99
  • Sergei Bezrukov (U. Wisconsin - Superior), 10/19/99
  • Narong Punnim (Australia) 10/12/99
  • Hung-Lin Fu (National Chiao-Tung U., Taiwan), 8/31/99

1998-1999

  • Richard Karp (U. Calif. - Berkeley), 5/4/99
  • Peter Winkler (Lucent Technologies), 3/23/99
  • 25 talks in Graph Theory at AMS Meeting #941, Mar 19-21, 1999.
    • 3/19am: M. Ellingham (Vanderbilt), X. Zha (Middle Tennessee State), J. Hutchinson (Macalester), N. Robertson (Ohio State)
    • 3/19pm: M.S. Jacobson (Louisville), R. Faudree (Memphis), R. Gould (Emory), L. Goddyn (Simon Fraser), L. Thoma (Carnegie Mellon), A. Kostochka (Novosibirsk and Memphis)
    • 3/20am: A.E. Kezdy (Louisville), T.A. Mckee (Wright State), D. Mubayi (Georgia Tech), R. Schelp (Memphis)
    • 3/20pm: H.A. Kierstead (Arizona State), W.T. Trotter (Arizona State), Dimension, M. Krivelevich (Institute for Advanced Study), D. Corneil (Toronto), J. Spinrad (Vanderbilt), Z. Miller (Miami - Ohio))
    • 3/21am: J.R. Griggs (South Carolina), Y. Zhao (Benedict College), G.G. Chappell (Southeast Missouri State), C.A. Hartman (Alaska - Fairbanks), P. Winkler (Lucent Technologies)
  • Saad El-Zanati (Illinois St.), 2/23/99
  • Alexandr Kostocka (Novosibirsk/Memphis), 2/4/99
  • Rade Zivaljevic (Belgrade), 1/21/99

1997-1998

  • Chris Rodger (Auburn), 4/28/98
  • Daniel Sanders (Princeton), 1/29/98
  • Bruce Reed (Paris), 12/10/97
  • Abdollah Khodkar (Queensland), 10/28/97
  • Darryn Bryant (Queensland), 10/7/97

1996-1997

  • Gabor Hetyei (MSRI), 1/28/97
  • Mihai Ciucu (MSRI), 12/10/97
  • Xiaoya Zha (Vanderbilt), 11/5/96
  • R. Sritharan (Indiana St.), 10/22/96
  • Imre Barany (Budapest) 10/96 (Coble Lectures)
  • Frank Sottile (MSRI), 10/1/96
  • Noga Alon (Tel Aviv/Inst. Adv. Study), 9/10/96

Earlier Visiting Speakers

  • 1995-96: Janos Pach, Masato Wakayama
  • 1994-95: Nick Pippenger
  • 1993-94: Danny Chen, Bela Bollobas (Coble Lectures), Italo Dejter,
  • 1992-93: Norihide Tokushige, Shailesh Tipnis, Laszlo Lovasz, Jeong-Han Kim, Jeff Kahn
  • 1991-92: Andrzej Proskurowski, Mike Plantholt, Robert Beezer
  • 1990-91: William Y.C. Chen, Guoli Ding
  • date unknown: Peter Winkler, Kathy O'Hara, Doron Zeilberger, Herb Wilf, George Anderson