Computer Science Unit


          The Computer Science Unit (CSU) of the Indian Statistical Institute, Chennai started functioning around the year of 2011, and currently comprise of four faculty members, Ayineedi Venkateswarlu, Mathew C. Francis, Sujata Ghosh and T. Karthick. CSU has its pleasure in inviting "Mathematics" and "Computer Science" graduate students for pursuing their doctoral studies at ISI, Chennai. The main areas of research include Graph Theory, Algorithmic Graph Theory, Cryptology and Computer Algebra, and, Logic, Games, and Information Dynamics.

          Dr. Ayineedi Venkateswarlu received his M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Hyderabad and M.Tech. in Computer Science from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He received his Ph.D in Mathematics from the National University of Singapore in 2008. His research interests include Cryptology and Computer Algebra, more specifically sequences over finite fields, cryptographically significant boolean functions, computational aspects of algebra and number theory.

          Dr. Mathew C. Francis received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Computer Science from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 2010. His research interests include Algorithmic graph theory, in particular, the study of special classes of graphs that arise in various applications, such as the graphs that are defined by the intersection patterns between geometric objects, or graph classes that can be defined by forbidding certain structures from occurring in the graph. The main research effort is directed towards uncovering the structural properties of graphs belonging to such classes. Such understanding is then used in designing algorithms that can solve problems on these kinds of graphs more efficiently than is possible for general graphs. Purely mathematical questions such as upper and lower bounds for various graph invariants for graphs belonging to these classes are also studied. More details can be found at https://www.isichennai.res.in/~mathew.

          Dr. Sujata Ghosh received her Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics from the University of Calcutta in 2005, and then went on to do postdoctoral research at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the University of Amsterdam during 2006 - 2007 and at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Engineering (ALICE) of the University of Groningen during 2009 - 2012. Her research interests include logic, games, information dynamics and cognitive studies of human reasoning. Her main expertise is in logic, and she works in building up logical frameworks for game-like scenarios in social interactions using concepts from the game-theoretic literature. In addition, she works in modelling information (knowledge, belief) and protocol changes in the dynamic epistemic logic tradition. She is also interested in the implementation part of the formal studies and has taken part in the implementation of her work on belief networks and strategic reasoning for building up intelligent systems for belief change and negotiation, respectively. More recently, she has been looking at the interconnection of certain equilibrium and non-equilibrium solution concepts in game theory from experimental as well as theoretical point of view. Details can be found at https://www.isichennai.res.in/~sujata.

          Dr. T. Karthick received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), Chennai in 2010. Dr. Karthick's topic of research is "Graph Theory and Graph Algorithms" and his research interests include: Graph coloring and its variations, Chromatic bounds, Perfect graphs and its generalizations, Structural properties of graphs, Decomposition theorems, Dominating and Independent Sets in graphs, and Algorithmic aspects in graphs. More details can be found at https://www.isichennai.res.in/~karthick.