Bistra Dilkina, Postdoctoral Associate

e-mail: bistra at cs.cornell.edu
office: 5160 Upson Hall
office tel.: 607 255 3042

Research Area(s):
Computational Sustainability, Combinatorial optimization, Scheduling, Hybrid search techniques, Game theory

News

Program Committee member, AAAI 2011

Graduate student local coordinator for “Distributed Seminar on Sustainability Science”

Summer intern at IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY (June-Aug 2009, May-Aug 2010)

TA for graduate course “Topics in Computational Sustainability”

Program Committee member, IJCAI 2009

NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship (CGS 2008-2010)

Co-chair, North - East Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence (NESCAI 2008)

Publications

Professional Service

Attended Conferences

Education

Awards and Distinctions

Links

Publications

Upgrading Shortest Paths in Networks

Bistra Dilkina, Katherine Lai, Carla Gomes.

CPAIOR-11: International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Berlin, Germany, May 2011.

[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Maximizing Spread of Cascades Using Network Design

Daniel Sheldon, Bistra Dilkina, Adam Elmachtoub, Ryan Finseth, Ashish Sabharwal, Jon Conrad, Carla Gomes, David Shmoys, Will Allen, Ole Amundsen, William Vaughan.

UAI-10: Conference in Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, Catalina Island, CA, July 2010.

[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Solving Connected Subgraph Problems in Wildlife Conservation
Bistra Dilkina, Carla P. Gomes
CPAIOR-10: 7th International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Bologna, Italy, June 2010.

[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Backdoors in the Context of Learning
Bistra Dilkina, Carla P. Gomes, Ashish Sabharwal
SAT-09: 12th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, Swansea, Wales, U.K., June 2009. (short paper).

Also: talk at CORS-INFORMS-09

[ PDF, extended version as a Tech Report | BiBTeX ]

Backdoors to Combinatorial Optimization: Feasibility and Optimality
Bistra Dilkina, Carla Gomes, Yuri Malitsky, Ashish Sabharwal, Meinolf Sellmann
CPAIOR-09: 6th International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2009.

[ PDF | BiBTeX | also at CORS/INFORMS 2009 ]

Tradeoffs in the Complexity of Backdoor Detection
Bistra Dilkina, Carla P. Gomes, Ashish Sabharwal
CP-07: 13^th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Providence, RI, Sept 2007.

Also: talk at INFORMS Annual Meeting 2008

[ PDF | extended results at ISAIM-08 | BiBTeX ]

The Impact of Network Topology on Pure Nash Equilibria in Graphical Games
Bistra Dilkina, Carla P. Gomes, Ashish Sabharwal
AAAI-07: 22^nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, July 2007.

[ PDF | BiBTeX ] Nominated for the AAAI-07 Best Paper Award

Extending Systematic Local Search for Job Shop Scheduling Problems

Bistra Dilkina, Lei Duan, and William S. Havens

CP-05: 11^th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Sitges, Spain, October 2005

[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Scheduling the National Football League Season

Bistra Dilkina and William S. Havens

IAAI-04: 16^th Innovative Applications in AI Conference, San Jose, USA, July 2004
[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

A Hybrid Schema for Systematic Local Search

William S. Havens and Bistra Dilkina

AI-04: 17^th Canadian Conference on AI, London, Canada, May 2004
[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Other: Workshops, Talks, Drafts

Tradeoffs in the Complexity of Backdoor Detection for Combinatorial Problems
Bistra Dilkina, Carla P. Gomes, Ashish Sabharwal
(under review) AMAI: Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.

[ draft PDF ]

A Framework for Designing and Evaluating Mixed-Initiative Optimization Systems

Arthur Kirkpatrick, Bistra Dilkina, and William S. Havens

ICAPS-05: Workshop on Mixed-Initiative Planning and Scheduling, Monterey, CA, June 2005

[ PDF | BiBTeX ]

Systematic Local Search

Talk at the 3rd International Workshop on Constraint Programming and Belief Revision, Sydney, Australia, December 2002

Professional Service

PC member: IJCAI 2009, AAAI 2011

Co-chair of NESCAI 2008: North East Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence

Reviewer: SODA 2009, AAMAS 2008, CP-AI-OR 2008, IJCAI 2007/2009/2011, AAAI 2006/2007/2011, CP 2007, Annals of Operations Research Special Issue for CP-AI-OR 2006/2007, STACS 2007, NESCAI 2007, INFORMS Journal of Computing, Annals of Mathematics and AI

Workshop Coordinator: EYH: Expanding Your Horizons 2008/2009

Attended Conferences

CompSust 2009/2010 International Conference on Computational Sustainability

CPAIOR 2009/2010 International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems

CP 2005/2007/2009 International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming

NESCAI 2007/2008 North - East Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence

GHC 2007 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Orlando, FL, Oct 2007

AAAI 2007 AAAI Conference on AI, Vancouver, BC Canada, July 2007

CRA-W 2006/2007 Grad Cohort Workshop for Women

ICAPS 2005 International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, Monterey, CA, June 2005

AAAI/IAAI 2004 National Conference on AI, San Jose, CA, July 2004

SAT 2004 International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, Vancouver, Canada, May 2004

AI 2004 Canadian Conference on AI, London, Canada, May 2004

Education

B.Sc. with Honors	(1999 - 2004)	School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University	Vancouver, CANADA
International Baccalaureate (IB)	(1997-1999)	United World College of the Adriatic	Trieste, ITALY
RSI	1996	Research Science Institute (summer school at MIT)	Cambridge, MA, USA
High school	(1993 - 1997)	American College of Sofia	Sofia, BULGARIA

Awards and Distinctions

NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship 2008-2010

awarded based on the strength of candidates' academic excellence, research ability and communication skills (CDN$21,000 per year)

2007 Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship

a $10,000 scholarship for outstanding female undergraduate and graduate students completing their degrees in computer science and related fields

Thanks To Scandinavia Fellowship for Bulgaria 2006-2007

a competitive annual fellowship that offers future Bulgarian leaders firsthand experience into the workings of U.S. organizations

Dean of Applied Sciences Convocation Medal
awarded to one student from any department in Applied Sciences for outstanding academic achievements

B.C. Sugar Achievement Award
an annual award of $4,000 honoring someone from SFU who, through a commitment to excellence, has brought distinction to the university and B.C. by achieving national or international prominence.

2003 Outstanding Female Undergraduate Award by the Computing Research Association (CRA)
recognizes undergraduate students who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research

International Gordon M. Shrum Scholarship
full scholarship for completing a Bachelors degree at Simon Fraser University [$40,000 over 8 semester] (1999)

Full scholarship
for a 2-year study towards an International Baccalaureate Diploma at the United World College of the Adriatic, Italy (1997-1999)

Certificate of Participation with Distinction of the Research Science Institute’96
for producing one of the top five research papers, "An Alternative Approach to Information Retrieval Using Multi-word Terms", realized in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT (1996)

Full scholarship
to take part in the summer program Research Science Institute’96 held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1996)

Links of interest

My list of programs and scholarships for Women in CS
My list of non-US citizen PhD fellowships