Moses Charikar

Moses Charikar is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering at Stanford University since August 2015. Previously, he worked at Princeton University from 2001 and spent a year at Google Research after his Ph.D. studies.

• Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University (2000)

His research focuses on algorithm design and analysis, particularly approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems, metric embeddings, and techniques for massive datasets. He has advanced mathematical programming methods (linear and semidefinite programming) to establish lower bounds for dimension reduction and develop locality-sensitive hashing for high-dimensional data structures. His work bridges theoretical computer science and practical applications in data representation and search efficiency.

Notable recognition includes the 2012 ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award for contributions to locality-sensitive hashing. As a founding Principal Investigator (PI) in the Simons Collaboration on Algorithms and Geometry (2014/15), he contributed to foundational research in computational methods.