Michael Chavrimootoo, URCS PhD Student
(he/him/his)
I am a 3rd year Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Rochester under the supervision
of
Professor Lane A. Hemaspaandra.
My research spans computational social choice (COMSOC), complexity theory, and economics. I'm driven by a need to understand the
landscape of a field to find surprising structures and techniques that open new avenues. This had led me to explore the problems
in COMSOC and complexity and determine precisely what separates them from other problems, or when collapses are hiding in plain sight.
Before that, I completed my undergrad at UR with a focus on courses in CS theory, elections, and economic development.
Some problems I've worked on:
- Determining which standard electoral control types are the same in concrete election systems (equivalences that have evaded the field for years).
- Linking search and decision complexities of equivalent electoral control problems.
- Determining what properties of an election system lead certain control types to collapse (which immediately yields results for infinitely many systems).
- Providing tools to study the complexity of grid games with irreversible gravity (which were not well-studied; this opens up new research avenues).
I'm always open to exploring new theoretical concepts in computer science, economics, and math, along with their applications.
Feel free to reach out if you have overlapping interests!
Teaching (as Adjunct Faculty/Instructor)