Aleck Johnsen

Email: aleckjohnsen@u.northwestern.edu
Office: (past) Seeley G. Mudd Library; 2233 Tech Dr. Room 3016; Evanston, IL; 60208

I graduated from Northwestern University in September 2021 with a Ph.D. in Computer Science with advisor Jason Hartline.
I graduated from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in December 2003 with a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Civil
Engineering (Transportation).

(Post-graduation, this page is archived as of 01-February 2022; linked documents may change.)













Research:          
Statement


Economics. Mechanism design, auction theory, econometric inference in auctions, game theory, information design, persuasion.

Computer Science. Robust mechanism design, algorithmic game theory, online algorithms, adversary algorithms, theory of data science.
Working Papers:          
Bias-Variance Games.  Arxiv
with Yiding Feng, Ronen Gradwohl, Jason Hartline, and Denis Nekipelov

Lower Bounds for Prior Independent Algorithms.  Arxiv
with Jason Hartline
Published Papers:          
Benchmark Design and Prior Independent Optimization.  Arxiv
with Jason Hartline and Yingkai Li
[FOCS 2020] Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, virtual-Durham
Video (YL long-talk for FOCS, 24 min.)

Mechanisms for a No-Regret Agent: Beyond the Common Prior.  Arxiv
with Modibo Camara and Jason Hartline
[FOCS 2020] Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, virtual-Durham
Video (MC long-talk for FOCS, 24 min.)

Inference from Auction Prices.  Arxiv
with Jason Hartline, Denis Nekipelov, and Zihe Wang
[SODA 2020] Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, Salt Lake City

Dashboard Mechanisms for Online Marketplaces.  Arxiv
with Jason Hartline, Denis Nekipelov, and Onno Zoeter
[EC 2019] Conference on Economics and Computation, Phoenix (as 2-page abstract)
Video (JH at MSR-Redmond, 65 min.)

A Manually Checkable Proof for the NP-Hardness of 11-Color Pattern Self-Assembly Tile Set Synthesis.  Arxiv
with Ming-Yang Kao and Shinnosuke Seki
[JOCO 2017-Feb] Journal of Combinatorial Optimization

Computing Minimum Tile Sets to Self-Assemble Color Patterns.  Arxiv
with Ming-Yang Kao and Shinnosuke Seki
[ISAAC 2013] International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, Hong Kong
Video  part 2 (AJ at ISAAC, 21 min. + 90 sec. overlap, unofficial video)
Data Science:          
(with Booking.com)




Instrumentation of Ranking Mechanisms.  Extended Abstract
(the full paper is currently not publicly available, subject to legal release by Booking.com)
with Andrea Ciancone, Jason Hartline, Shirish Kasa, Denis Nekipelov, Steve Oliemans,
Roberto Pagano, Eric Soetrisno, Leonardo Soto, Marcell Szathmari, and Onno Zoeter
[MIT-CODE 2017] Conference on Digital Experimentation, Cambridge  Workshop
PhD Thesis:          
Bayesian-robust Algorithms Analysis with Applications in Mechanism Design.  PDF
September 2021; Northwestern University; Evanston, Illinois, USA
Defense: 30-July 2021  Announcement
Commmittee: Jason Hartline (advisor; committee chair); Denis Nekipelov (Virginia); Aravindan Vijayaraghavan (Northwestern)
Past Teaching:        
(Northwestern) Fall 2014, EECS 214/395 Data Structures and Data Management.
Course Policies and Syllabus
Installing Python 2.7.8
Past TA Roles:        
(Northwestern)


Spring 2017, EECS 336 Design & Analysis of Algorithms for Jason Hartline
Spring 2014, EECS 214/395 Data Structures and Data Management for Amartya Banerjee
Winter 2013 and Winter 2012, EECS 336 Design & Analysis of Algorithms for Ming-Yang Kao