Clifford Stein

Clifford Stein is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) and Computer Science at Columbia University, and Associate Director for Research at the Data Science Institute. He holds a Ph.D. (1992), M.S. (1989), and B.S.E. (1987) from MIT and Princeton University, respectively.

His research focuses on algorithms, combinatorial optimization, operations research, scheduling, and computational biology. A co-author of the best-selling textbook Introduction to Algorithms, Stein has published widely in top venues and holds prestigious awards like ACM Fellow and NSF Career Award.

His work includes foundational contributions to minimum cut algorithms, scheduling theory, and network optimization, supported by NSF and Sloan Foundation grants. Stein has advised over 40 graduate and undergraduate students, many now in academia and industry.