Events - Colloquia & Seminars

CCIS Colloquium Spring 2008

Sponsored Search Algorithmics

Speaker: S. Muthu Muthukrishnan

Date: Monday, March 31, 2008

Talk: 12:00 p.m. - 1 p.m., 366 WVH

Abstract

Web search is sponsored by advertisements which are typically determined via an auction. This talk will provide an overview of algorithmic and game-theoretic issues that arise in running such auctions. In particular, there is a need to develop (1) new mechanisms for emerging auctions; (2) optimization methods for benefiting from current auctions, and (3) statistical estimation tools to support the existing auction systems. Solving these problems needs algorithmic ideas, and there are still many open problems.

Brief Biography

S. (Muthu) Muthukrishnan is a research scientist at Google Research in NY and on the computer science faculty at Rutgers University. He graduated from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1994 with thesis work on two person probabilistic games and pattern matching, and continued with research in many different topics and multiple organizations: (Computational Biology, DIMACS), (Load Balancing, Univ. of Warwick @ UK), (Databases and Scheduling, Bell Labs), (Wireless Systems and IP Networks, AT&T Research), and (Wireless Technology for Social Networks, Rutgers Univ). More tuples should follow!

His work on building nation-wide location aware services for AT&T Wireless was covered in MSNBC and CBS, and he presented it at the National Academy of Engineering meeting in 2002. He has been on PCs of conferences and organized workshops and special programs in theoretical computer science, discrete mathematics, networking and databases. His personal agenda is to be a Scientist, Engineer and Mathematician, all in one.