Joshua Brakensiek

Photo of Joshua Brakensiek.


I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in EECS at the University of California, Berkeley, where I am supervised by Venkatesan Guruswami. My CV is available here.

In 2024, I graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. I was fortunate to be co-advised by Aviad Rubinstein and Moses Charikar.

Before that, I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematical Sciences as a Knaster-McWilliams Scholar.

Research

My primary research agenda is to tackle fundamental questions in theoretical computer science and adjacent areas, particularly questions inspired by modern challenges in computing. Towards this goal, I apply theoretical and computational techniques from many areas including combinatorics, algebra, convex optimization, and formal methods.

Some of my recent works with various collaborators include:

Publications and Manuscripts

Teaching

Professional Service

Selected Awards

In high school, I participated in various mathematics and computer science competitions.

Other

My PhD quals have been published as a pair of blog posts. (Part 1, Part 2)

At CMU, I was a member of Keenan Crane's Geometry Collective.

I am a class of 2012 alumnus of the Research Science Institute.

The following photograph I took of Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona appears in the Mathematical Association of America's 100th anniversary calendar:

photo