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Research

I joined the School of Computational Science and Engineering as an Assistant Professor in August 2013. Before that I was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for Computational Sustainability. I finished my PhD in Computer Science at Cornell University in January 2012 under the supervision of Carla Gomes.

Decision and optimization problems concerning allocating, protecting and/or restoring scarce natural resources are at the heart of many sustainability issues. My research agenda has been significantly enriched by the research questions and directions created by the interdisciplinary field of computational sustainability. I am interested in network design problems as they arise in large-scale wildlife conservation planning concerning landscape connectivity. I also work on stochastic optimization approaches to the management of diffusion processes or cascades, such as wildlife dispersal, the spread of invasive species, disease outbreaks, and forest fires. My work on sustainability-related problems has resulted both in a novel meaningful and fulfilling application domains of computational techniques, as well as in identifying new computational problems in optimization and network design that require the development of models and solution techniques that push forward the field in general.

Full CV

Education

  • Ph.D. (2005 - 2012) Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
  • PhD Minor in Operations Research.
  • B.Sc. (1999-2004) Computer Science, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, CANADA (Graduated with Honors, Convocation Medal in Applied Sciences).
  • International Baccalaureate (IB) (1997-1999) United World College of the Adriatic Trieste, ITALY

Publications

  • Improving Your Chances: Boosting Citizen Science Discovery
    Yexiang Xue, Bistra Dilkina, Theodoros Damoulas, Daniel Fink, Carla P. Gomes and Steve Kelling.
    HCOMP-13: AAAI Conference on Human Computation and CrowdSourcing, Nov 2013.
    [ PDF | BiBTeX ]
  • Robust Network Design for Multispecies Conservation
    Ronan Le Bras, Bistra Dilkina, Yexiang Xue, Carla P. Gomes, Kevin S. McKelvey, Claire Montgomery and Michael K. Schwartz.
    AAAI-13: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 2013 (CompSustAI Track)
    [ PDF | BiBTeX ]
  • Large Landscape Conservation - Synthetic and Real-World Datasets
    Bistra Dilkina, Katherine Lai, Ronan Le Bras, Yexiang Xue, Carla P. Gomes, Ashish Sabharwal, Jordan Suter, Kevin S. McKelvey, Michael K. Schwartz and Claire Montgomery.
    AAAI-13: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 2013 (CompSustAI Track Data Challenge Paper)
    [ PDF | BiBTeX ]
  • 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 ]
    Extended talk presented at INFORMS Annual Meeting 2011 as: Cost-effective Conservation Planning for Improved Landscape Connectivity (awarded Best Talk in the INFORMS 2011 Forestry Sessions)
  • 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).
    [ PDF, extended version as a Tech Report | BiBTeX | also at CORS-INFORMS-09]
  • 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: 13th 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: 22nd 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: 11th 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: 16th 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: 17th Canadian Conference on AI, London, Canada, May 2004
    [ PDF | BiBTeX]

Teaching

CompSust Conference, 2012: Tutorial Presenter, Master class at International Conference on Computational Sustainability (CompSust), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2012

Cornell, Spring 2011: Guest Lecturer in Graduate Course "Topics in Computational Sustainability" - three lectures.

Cornell, Spring 2010: Teaching Assistant in Graduate Course "Topics in Computational Sustainability" - first time course offering, helped develop materials and projects.

Cornell, Spring 2008: Teaching Assistant in Undergraduate Course "Networks" - taught by Profs. Jon Kleinberg and David Easley, cross-listed in Computer Scince, Economics, Sociology, Information Science, 200+ students. Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Cornell, Spring 2008/2009/2010: Workshop Coordinator for EYH: Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics, a conference for girls 7th-9th grade.

Ongoing Projects

Wildlife Corridor Design
Connected Subgraph Problem with Node Profits and Node Costs
[link]

Landscape Connectivity
Upgrading Shortest Paths in Networks
[link]

Conservation Planning with Meta-population Models
Network Design for Cascade Optimization
[link]


Bistra Dilkina

Institute for Computational Sustainability

Contact Information

Bistra Dilkina
5160 Upson Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY, 14853
bistra at cs.cornell.edu