Stephen Robert HannekeView profile
Assistant Professor
Stephen Robert Hanneke is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University, specializing in theoretical machine learning and statistical learning theory. His work focuses on reducing the number of training examples required for learning, with contributions to supervised, semi-supervised, active, and transfer learning. He joined Purdue in Fall 2021 after roles including Research Assistant Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (2018–2021), Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University (2018), and Visiting Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (2009–2012). Education: B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2005), Ph.D. in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University (2009). Research interests include statistical learning theory, machine learning foundations, algorithms, and quantum computing. Notable contributions explore the theoretical underpinnings of active learning, adversarial robustness, and universal learning frameworks. His research bridges disciplines like probability theory, philosophy of science, and algorithmic information theory. Key awards include the Best Paper Award at ALT 2021 for 'Stable Sample Compression Schemes' and runner-up for COLT 2021. He has also received the COLT 2020 Best Paper Award and an Honorable Mention for the ICML 2017 Test of Time Award. His work on 'A Bound on the Label Complexity of Agnostic Active Learning' (ICML 2007) received further recognition in 2017. Teaching includes courses on machine learning theory and data mining at Purdue, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon. He has organized workshops like the ALT 2019 'When Smaller Sample Sizes Suffice for Learning' and chaired the program committee for ALT 2017. His research outputs span over 100 publications in top venues like COLT, NeurIPS, and JMLR, focusing on foundational questions in learning theory and algorithmic efficiency.












