Homepage of Lukas Kroc at Cornell University

Lukas Kroc
PhD
firstname.lastname@cornell.edu

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

I graduated from Cornell in August 2009 (my disseration title is Probabilitic Techniques for Constraint Satisfaction Problems), I spent a year as a post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory (in CCS-3 group working with Stephan Eidenbenz on agent simulation models), and as of January 2011 I am a Research Assistant Professor at Claremont Graduate University. I was awarded the 2010 Computing Innovation Fellowship and work with Allon Percus at CGU. My CV is available here.

Research

My research interests lie in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Not because of the aim of recreating human level intelligence (which would be nice of course), but because I want to help develop techniques and systems capable of producing results in a highly complex and uncertain environment that are not necessarily the most optimal, but results that are delivered in a timely fashion and allow the system to be successful in the long run. That is, I think, the purpose of intelligent behavior.

At Cornell, I worked mostly with Bart Selman, my advisor, and Ashish Sabharwal. I also did research at Los Alamos National Laboratory with Misha Chertkov and Stephan Eidenbenz.

Publications

M. Chertkov, L. Kroc, F. Krzakala, M. Vergassola, L. Zdeborova: Inference in particle tracking experiments by passing messages between images. In Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2010. [published]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: An Empirical Study of Optimal Noise and Runtime Distributions in Local Search, SAT-10. 13th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, Scotland, U.K., Jun 2010 (short paper) [paper]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Leveraging Belief Propagation, Backtrack Search, and Statistics for Model Counting. Annals of Operations Research [published]
L. Kroc, S. Eidenbenz, J. P. Smith: Sessionsim: Activity-based Session Generation for Network Simulation, WSC-09, Winter Simulation Conference, Austin, TX, Dec 2009 [paper]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, C. P. Gomes, B. Selman: Integrating Systematic and Local Search Paradigms: A New Strategy for MaxSAT, IJCAI-09. 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Pasadena, CA, Jul 2009 [paper]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Relaxed DPLL Search for MaxSAT, SAT-09. 12th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, Swansea, Wales, U.K., Jun 2009 (short paper) [paper]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Message-Passing and Local Heuristics as Decimation Strategies for Satisfiability, SAC-09. 24th Annual ACM Symp. on Applied Computing, Honolulu, Mar 2009 [paper]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Counting Solution Clusters in Graph Coloring Problems Using Belief Propagation, NIPS-08. 22nd Annual Conf. on Neural Inf. Processing Sys., Vancouver, Canada, Dec 2008 [paper, poster]
L. Kroc, M. Chertkov: Loop Calculus for Satisfiability, Proc. of 23rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI'08, Chicago, Jul 2008 [extended abstract, poster]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Leveraging Belief Propagation, Backtrack Search, and Statistics for Model Counting, CPAIOR-08. 5th Int'l Conf. on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Paris, France, May 2008 [paper, slides]
L. Kroc, A. Sabharwal, B. Selman: Survey Propagation Revisited, Proc. of the 23rd Conf. on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), Vancouver, Canada, Jul 2007. Nominated for best student paper award. [paper (revised, see footnote 3), slides]
R. Waupotitsch, S. Eidenbenz, L. Kroc, J. P. Smith: Multi-Scale Integrated Information and Telecommunications System (MIITS): First Results from a Large-Scale End-to-End Network Simulator, Proceedings of Winter Simulation Conference, Monterey, USA, Dec 2006 [paper, slides]
C. L. Barrett, S. Eidenbenz, L. Kroc, M. V. Marathe, J. P. Smith: Probabilistic Multi-path vs. Deterministic Single-path Protocols for Dynamic Ad-hoc Network Scenarios, SAC-05, Santa Fe, Mar 2005 [paper, slides]
S. Eidenbenz, L. Kroc, J. P. Smith: Maneuverable Relays to Improve Energy Efficiency in Sensor Networks, Proceedings of The First International Workshop on Sensor Networks and Systems for Pervasive Computing (PerSeNS), Hawaii, USA, Mar 2005 [paper, slides]
C. L. Barrett, S. Eidenbenz, L. Kroc, M. V. Marathe, and J. P. Smith: Parametric Probabilistic Routing in Sensor Networks, ACM Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET) Journal, Volume 10, Feb 2005 [paper]
C. L. Barrett, S. Eidenbenz, L. Kroc, M. V. Marathe, and J. P. Smith: Parametric Probabilistic Sensor Network Routing, Proc. of WSNA, San Diego, CA, USA, Sep 2003 [paper, slides]

Technical Reports

M. Chertkov, L. Kroc, M. Vergassola: Belief Propagation and Beyond for Particle Tracking, arXiv:0806.1199, 2008
L. Kroc: Activity Based Session Generation for Personal Communication, Los Alamos National Laboratory Technical Report, LA-UR-07-0593, 2007
L. Kroc: SessionSim, Los Alamos National Laboratory Technical Report, LA-UR-07-0592, 2007
L. Kroc: SimCore, Los Alamos National Laboratory Technical Report, LA-UR-07-0590, 2007
L. Kroc, J. P. Smith: AdHopNet System Test and Test Scenario Report - Session Generation, Los Alamos National Laboratory Technical Report, LA-UR-03-8063, 2003.

Teaching

My previous teaching experiences taught me that patience and empathy are the basic building blocks of the incredibly subtle skill and art called `good teaching'. Empathy to understand the needs, strengths and challenges of each individual student, and patience to keep searching for the right teaching approach. And all this must be done in a very dynamic environment, where the ability to listen and adapt quickly to circumstances is essential.

Tutorial Presenter at the tutorial forum of the 23rd AAAI Conf. on Artificial Intelligence, Chicago, July 2008

Tutorial title: Satisfied by Message Passing: Probabilistic Techniques for Combinatorial Problems
A shorter version presented at the 3rd Learning and Intelligent Optimization Workshop (LION3), Trento, Italy, January 2009

Instructor of Fractals and Chaos at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth program, LaFayette College, Easton PA (July-August 2008)
Teaching Assistant at Cornell University:

Mathematical Foundations for the Information Age (spring 2007)

Uncertainty and Multi-Agent Systems (spring 2006)