Maria-Florina Balcan

Maria-Florina (Nina) Balcan is the Cadence Design Systems Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, holding joint appointments in the Machine Learning Department and the Computer Science Department within the School of Computer Science. Her research focuses on foundational aspects of machine learning, algorithmic game theory, and theoretical computer science. She has held leadership roles, including the Cadence Design Systems Chair since 2020, and previously served as an associate professor at CMU and assistant professor at Georgia Tech.

Education includes a PhD (2008) and MS (2002) from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.S. (1996-2000) from the University of Bucharest. Postdoctoral work followed at Microsoft Research (2008-2009). Her research bridges machine learning and game theory, addressing challenges like interactive learning, distributed algorithms, and algorithmic economics.

Key awards include the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award and Simons Investigatorship. Teaching spans advanced courses on machine learning foundations and game theory. Her work on revenue maximization in auctions and regret minimization in Stackelberg games reflects her interdisciplinary impact.

Professional activities include organizing major conferences (ICML, NeurIPS) and serving on committees such as the AAAI/SIGAI AI Dissertation Award Committee. Her lab focuses on theoretical and applied machine learning, emphasizing algorithmic robustness and generalization.