Abstract: Networks can be conducive to the spread of undesirable phenomena from false information to bankruptcy of financial institutions and contagious disease. How can we leverage algorithms to stop or slow down contagious processes? I will survey algorithmic problems related to minimum contagious sets, social distancing and vaccination. Many open questions will be discussed.
Bio: Daniel Reichman is an assistant professor in the department of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He received his PhD at the Weizmann institute and was a postdoc at Cornell University, UC Berkeley and Princeton University. His research interests include neural networks, computational complexity, and algorithmic approaches that go beyond worst-case analysis.