Iyad Kanj

Iyad Kanj is a Professor in the School of Computing at DePaul University, part of the College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM). He joined DePaul in 2001 after earning his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University under Jianer Chen. His research focuses on theoretical computer science, particularly parameterized complexity, algorithm design, and applications in robotics and bioinformatics.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Texas A&M University (Advisor: Jianer Chen)

Research Interests: Kanj’s work spans parameterized algorithms, graph theory, computational geometry, and robotic motion planning. He leads projects in matrix completion for machine learning and robotic navigation, contributing to the RoME (Robotics and Medical Engineering) Lab at CDM. Recent projects include energy-efficient motion planning for continuum robots and clustering algorithms for incomplete data.

Teaching: Kanj teaches courses in algorithms, discrete structures, and theoretical computing, including Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Theory of Computation, and Combinatorial Optimization.

Collaborations & Service: He has served on program committees for major conferences like AAAI, SOCG, and IPEC, and is a guest editor for Algorithmica. His work is accessible via DBLP and Google Scholar.

Labs & Projects: Active in the RoME Lab, focusing on bio-inspired robotics and medical engineering applications. Current students include Ph.D. candidates Jiahao Deng and Brandon Meng, and M.S. student Atul Ponda.