Michael Dinitz

Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD USA

mdinitz@cs.jhu.edu

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I am an Associate Professor in the Computer Science department, with a secondary appointment in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, at Johns Hopkins University.

My research interests are in Theoretical Computer Science, with an emphasis on approximation algorithms, and applications to computer networking and distributed computing.

I am a member of Algorithms and Complexity group, and the Mathematical Institute for Data Science inside of the Data Science and AI Institute at JHU.

My work has been supported by various NSF grants, including a CRII grant, an AitF grant, and Algorithmic Foundations grants (first, second).
As a graduate student I was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, as well as an ARCS Scholarship.

Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, 2010. Advised by Anupam Gupta.
A.B., Princeton University, 2005. Advised by Sanjeev Arora.

My CV.

Publications

Most of my publications

Ph.D. Thesis: Algorithms and Models for Problems in Networking

Projects

Some of my systems projects have taken on lives of their own:

• Xpander: Towards Optimal-Performance Datacenters
• Wide-area Dissemination under Strict Reliability, Timeliness, and Cost Constraints

Teaching

Undergraduate/Masters:

• 601.433/633 / 600.463 Introduction to Algorithms: Fall '25, Fall '24, Fall '21, Fall '20, Fall '19, Fall '18, Fall '17, Fall '16, Fall '15, Fall '14

Graduate:

• 601.438/638 Algorithmic Foundations of Differential Privacy: Spring '25
• 601.435/635 Approximation Algorithms: Spring '24, Spring '21, Spring '19, Spring '17, Spring '15
• 601.436/636 Algorithmic Game Theory: Spring '22, Spring '20, Spring '18, Spring '16
• 600.770 Selected Topics in Algorithms for Metric Spaces: Spring '14

Research Group

Qiming Cui (PhD), Shruthi Prusty (PhD), Kailee Lin (PhD)

Alumni: Ama Koranteng (PhD), Yasamin Nazari (PhD), Aditya Krishnan (PhD), Zeyu Zhang (PhD), Raymond Jiang (MSE), Tianli Luo (MSE), Yang Xiao (MSSI), Yuchao Li (visiting PhD), Liam Baca (BS), Rishi Chandra (2024, BS), Caleb Robelle (2021, BS), Naomi Ephraim (2016, BS), Chenglin Fan (postdoc)

Service

Journals:

• ACM Transactions on Algorithms, Associate Editor

Conference Organization:

• IPCO '25: Local Arrangements Committee and Webmaster
• FOCS '19: Local Arrangements Chair and Treasurer

Program Committees:

• STOC 2026, Salt Lake City, UT
• APPROX 2025, Berkeley, CA
• ICDCS 2023, Hong Kong, China
• ICALP 2023, Paderborn, Germany
• ALGOSENSORS 2022, Potsdam, Germany
• ESA 2022, Potsdam, Germany
• SIROCCO 2022, Paderborn, Germany
• DISC 2021, Freiburg, Germany
• STOC 2021, Rome, Italy
• APoCS 2021, Alexandra, VA
• ICDCS 2020, Singapore
• SODA 2020, Salt Lake City, UT
• APoCS 2020, Salt Lake City, UT
• APPROX 2019, Boston, MA
• SOSA 2019, San Diego, CA
• OPODIS 2018, Hong Kong
• APPROX 2015, Princeton, NJ
• SPAA 2013, Montreal, Canada
• CATS 2013, Adelaide, Australia

Workshop Organization:

• NSF Algorithms in the Field (AiTF) Workshop on Algorithms for Software-Defined Networking (June 2-3 2016)
• Spanners: Graphs and Geometry (Joint STOC-SoCG Workshop, June 18 2016)
• Capital Area Theory Day 2016 (May 26, 2016)

Elsewhere on the Internet

dblp    Google Scholar     Bluesky     Mastodon     Twitter

Family

Desiree Tillo    Ezra Dinitz    Jeff Dinitz    Sue Dinitz    Amy Dinitz    Tom Dinitz

Contact Information

Email: mdinitz@cs.jhu.edu
Phone: 410-516-6251

Office: Malone 217

Mailing Address: Department of Computer Science, 160 Malone Hall, 3400 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21218