Nikhil Garg

Nikhil Garg is an Assistant Professor of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) at Cornell Tech, as part of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, and an ORIE, Computer Science, and Information Science field member at Cornell University. His interdisciplinary work bridges computer science, operations research, data science, economics, and policymaking to improve democracy, education, high-stakes recommenders, and societal systems at large.

His research program focuses on designing, building, deploying, and evaluating public interest AI systems and data-driven decision-making within societal contexts. Garg emphasizes practical domain experience before tackling research questions, working closely with government agencies including the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, New York City Public Schools, New York Public Library, and Uber.

Garg's work spans two complementary directions: building and deploying public interest computational systems in collaboration with practitioners, and conceptually, mathematically, and empirically studying sociotechnical systems. His recent projects include algorithmic feeds for academic communities (Paper Skygest), high school application systems with NYC Department of Education, hospital patient placement systems in Hawai'i, resident crowdsourcing analysis with NYC Parks, and library operations optimization with the New York Public Library.

• NSF CAREER Award
• INFORMS George Dantzig Dissertation Award
• ACM SIGecom Dissertation Award Honorable Mention
• Forbes 30 under 30 for Science
• Multiple best paper awards including CSCW 2025 Best Paper Award

Garg advises PhD students including Vince Bartle (recipient of multiple CSCW 2025 awards) and Zhi Liu (INFORMS George Dantzig Dissertation Award finalist). His work has been featured in prominent publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Science Magazine, and Smithsonian Magazine. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, as well as a B.S. and B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.