Maryam Aliakbarpour

Maryam Aliakbarpour is the Michael B. Yuen and Sandra A. Tsai Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University, affiliated with the Ken Kennedy Institute. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from MIT (2020 and 2015) and a B.S. from Sharif University of Technology (2013). Her research focuses on theoretical computer science, statistical inference, learning theory, differential privacy, and hypothesis testing, with an emphasis on algorithm design under computational and privacy constraints. She has held postdoctoral positions at Boston University, Northeastern University, and UMass Amherst, and participated in the Simons Institute's 2020 program on high-dimensional computation.

Her work bridges foundational theory and practical applications, particularly in designing efficient algorithms for distribution testing, privacy-preserving machine learning, and hypothesis selection. Notable contributions include optimal algorithms for distribution testing under memory constraints and advancements in differential privacy for metalearning. She has received the Rising Stars in EECS (2018) and MIT’s Neekeyfar Award. Teaching includes graduate courses on learning theory and probabilistic methods, emphasizing algorithmic tools for modern computational challenges.

Her publications span top conferences like COLT, NeurIPS, and ICML, addressing topics such as privacy-aware learning, efficient entropy estimation, and robust statistical methods. She advises on research projects requiring strong algorithmic foundations and mentors students in theoretical computer science and data privacy.