Theory Seminar
Welcome to the Spring 2026 series of the University of Massachusetts Computer Science Theory Seminar. The seminar is 4-5 pm on Tuesdays in Room 140, in the Computer Science Building (CSB) at UMass Amherst, and is free and open to the public. The faculty host this semester is Cameron Musco. If you are interested in giving a talk, please email the faculty host, or Adam Lechowicz. Note that in addition to being a public lecture series, this is also a one-credit graduate seminar (CompSci 891M) that can be taken repeatedly for credit.
Spring 2026 Schedule of Speakers
NOTE: In order to ensure you get weekly updates for all the talks, please make sure you are part of the seminars@cs.umass.edu mailing list. If you wish to give a talk, or would like to nominate someone to give one, please email us to let us know!
Organizational Meeting
Tuesday, February 3 @ 4pm
TBD
TBD – Tuesday, February 10 @ 4pm
Abstract
Bio
Characterizing Strong Proofs Systems via Total Search Problems
Stefan Grosser (McGill) – Tuesday, February 17 @ 4pm
In 1929, Gödel proved his celebrated completeness theorem, showing that in first-order logic a statement is true if and only if it has a finite proof. Exactly fifty years later, Cook and Reckhow asked whether a stronger phenomenon might hold in propositional logic: is there a fixed proof system—such as the sequent calculus or ZFC—in which every tautology admits a short proof? Equivalently, does NP = coNP? This question lies at the heart of propositional proof complexity, whose central goal is to show that for every proof system there exist tautologies that require exponentially long proofs. In this talk, we survey a recent and successful line of work in proof complexity that connects the strength of proof systems to the complexity of combinatorial search problems. We will see how short proofs correspond to efficient algorithms (and conversely), and how this connection has been used to obtain new lower bounds in both proof complexity and circuit complexity. This talk is based on joint work with Noah Fleming, Toniann Pitassi, and Robert Robere.
Bio
Stefan is a fifth year PhD student at McGill University, advised by Robert Robere. His research is in computational complexity, with a focus on proof complexity and circuit lower bounds.
Previously, Stefan received his bachelor’s in computer science from UMass Amherst, and his Masters in mathematics from McGill.
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Chen Wang (RPI) – Tuesday, February 24 @ 4pm
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Keeping the World Connected: Building a Faster, Smarter, and Greener Internet
Ramesh Sitaraman (UMass Amherst) – Tuesday, March 3 @ 4pm. Distinguished University Professor Lecture, Great Hall, Old Chapel
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Myroslav Kryven (Amherst College) – Tuesday, March 10 @ 4pm
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No Meeting – Spring Break
Tuesday, March 17 @ 4pm
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Rik Sengupta (IBM Research) – Tuesday, March 24 @ 4pm
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Izzy Grosof (Emory) – Tuesday, March 31 @ 4pm
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Rikhav Shah (MIT) – Tuesday, April 7 @ 4pm
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Shivam Nadimpalli (MIT) – Tuesday, April 14 @ 4pm
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TBD – Tuesday, April 21 @ 4pm
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Neha Makhija (UMass Amherst) – Tuesday, April 28 @ 4pm
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TBD – Tuesday, May 5 @ 4pm
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