Ola Svensson

Ola Svensson is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL. His research focuses on approximation algorithms, combinatorial optimization, computational complexity, and scheduling. He has been supported by grants including the ERC Starting Grant "OptApprox" (2014-2019), SNF grants, and the ERC Consolidator Grant "POTCO" (2023-). He teaches courses such as Advanced Algorithms and Approximation Algorithms and Hardness of Approximation.

Education: PhD from IDSIA - Universita della Svizzera italiana (2009) and Master's from Uppsala University (2005).

Research Interests: Design and analysis of approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems, scheduling, and computational complexity. He explores limitations of approximation techniques through hardness results and contributes to theoretical computer science.

Publications span clustering, scheduling, and graph problems like the Traveling Salesman Problem. Recent work includes learning-augmented algorithms and robust optimization.

Awards: I&C teaching award and best paper awards at FOCS (2017) and STOC (2018). Over a dozen PhD students advised, many entering postdocs or industry roles.

Labs/Teams: Part of the theory group at EPFL, collaborating on academic projects and course development.