Short bio:
I am a research staff member of the Theory Group at the IBM Almaden Research Center. My current main investigation area is machine learning and its relationship to game theory, optimization and theoretical computer science.I received my Ph.D in Computer Science from Princeton University (2006), where I was very fortunate to have Prof. Sanjeev Arora as my advisor.
The main subject of my thesis, Efficient Algorithms for Online Convex Optimization and Their Applications, was a new algorithm for online learning based on Newton's method for convex optimization. I find it curious that the ideas for this algorithm arose from investigation of two seemingly unrelated problems: the combinatorial optimization problem of Sparsest Cut in graphs, and the online game-theoretic problem of portfolio selection (both of which are as intriguing to me today as when I first heard them formulated).
I completed the M.Sc program at Tel Aviv University Summa Cum Laude (2002) under the supervision of Prof. Muli Safra, after completing a B.Sc in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University, Magna Cum Laude 2001.
Prior/during my studies, I spent four years in industry as a software engineer: three years in real-time programming, DSP systems in Comverse Ltd. and another year of internet/protocol engineering at a Tel-Aviv-based start-up.