Seeun William Umboh
Lecturer in Algorithms and CS Honours Coordinator
School of Computer Science
The University of Sydney
(Note: I am moving to University of Melbourne on 1 May 2023)
Email: william DOT umboh AT sydney DOT edu DOT au
Office: Room 410, Building J12, School of Computer Science
Phone: +61 2 8627 7122
About Me
My research is broadly in theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimisation. I am particularly interested in approximation and online algorithms for optimisation problems involving graphs and metric spaces. A recent theme in my research is bridging the theory and practice of algorithms by collaborating with people outside of theoretical computer science to improve the use of algorithms in specific real-world settings such as ride-sharing.
I am passionate about sharing the joy of algorithmic problem-solving with students of all levels. I am incredibly grateful to have supervised 4 wonderful Honours students, all 4 of whom have received the University Medal, and to have co-authored 2 papers (1 at ICALP 2022 and 1 at SODA 2023) with them. Since 2019, I have been the unit coordinator and lecturer for the third-year algorithms unit COMP3027 and its advanced version COMP3927. I have been awarded the Faculty Unit of Study Survey Commendations 4 times for exceptionally high student ratings.
Before joining the University of Sydney, I was fortunate to be a postdoc with Prof. Nikhil Bansal at TU Eindhoven. I was also a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (hosted by Yair Bartal) from Oct 2017 - Jan 2018 and a Visiting Postdoc at the Simons Institute for the Algorithms and Uncertainty (Fall 2016) and Fine-Grained Complexity (Fall 2017) programs. I received my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was blessed to be co-advised by Profs. Shuchi Chawla and Eric Bach. I also have an MSc in Computer Science and a BSc majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics, all from UW-Madison.
News
- Dec 2022: I am excited to start as Lecturer in Computational Theory at the University of Melbourne on 1 May 2023!
- Oct 2022: Our paper "The Power of Clairvoyance for Multi-Level Aggregation and Set Cover with Delay" with 2 excellent undergrad Honours students Ngoc Mai Le and Ningyuan Xie was accepted at SODA 2023
- Oct 2022: Yun Li has started as an MPhil student, co-supervised with Clement Canonne
- Sep 2022: Our paper "Nested Active-Time Scheduling" with Nairen Cao, Jeremy Fineman, Shi Li, Julian Mestre and Katina Russell was accepted at ISAAC 2022
- Jul 2022: I am on the WADS PC
- Jul 2022: I am in Paris for ICALP 2022 and to visit IRIF
- Jun 2022: I am on the LATIN PC
- May 2022: My Honours student Ngoc Mai Le has received the Allan Bromley Prize for best Honours thesis mark in CS in 2021
- May 2022: I am co-organizing the AMSI-AustMS Workshop on Bridging Maths and Computer Science
- May 2022: Our paper "Online Weighted Cardinality Joint Replenishment Problem with Delay" with 2 brilliant undergrad Honours students Ryder Chen and Jahanvi Khatkar has been accepted to ICALP 2022
- May 2022: Our paper "Brief Announcement: Nested Active-Time Scheduling" with Nairen Cao, Jeremy Fineman, Shi Li, Julian Mestre and Katina Russell was accepted at SPAA 2022
- May 2022: I am on the APPROX PC
- Apr 2022: Our paper "Runtime and Energy Constrained Work Scheduling for Heterogeneous Systems" with Valon Raca, Eduard Mehofer and Bernhard Scholz has been accepted at the Journal of Supercomputing
- Feb 2022: My Honours students Ryder Chen and Ngoc Mai Le have received First Class Honours with University Medal
Awards
- 2021 Faculty USS Commendation for COMP3027 Algorithm Design
- 2021 Faculty USS Commendation for COMP3927 Algorithm Design (Advanced)
- 2020 Faculty USS Commendation for COMP3027 Algorithm Design
- 2020 Faculty USS Commendation for COMP3927 Algorithm Design (Advanced)
Advising
PhD- Lindsey Deryckere
- Sampson Wong (co-supervised)
- Yun Li (co-supervised)
- Sampson Wong (2019, co-supervised)
- Current: Alan Wu, Faye Xie, Tom Schwarz
- Ryder Chen - 2021, First Class Honours with University Medal
- Ngoc Mai Le - 2021, First Class Honours with University Medal, Allan Bromley Prize (best Honours thesis mark in CS in 2021)
- Ive Zhang - 2021, First Class Honours with University Medal
- Jahanvi Khatkar - 2020, First Class Honours with University Medal
Coursework project: Alan Wu (S2 2021), Ryder Chen (S2 2020), Cameron Eggins (S2 2020), Ive Zhang (S2 2019), Max Davy (S1 2019)
Teaching
COMP3027 Algorithm Design: S1 2022, S1 2021, S1 2020, S1 2019
COMP3927 Algorithm Design (Advanced): S1 2022, S1 2021, S1 2020, S1 2019
COMP9123 Data Structures and Algorithms: S1 2022 (co-taught with Clement Cannone)
Program Committees
SODA 2022, APPROX 2022, LATIN 2022, WADS 2022, SOSA 2021, FSTTCS 2018, APPROX 2017