Jon Ullman

I used to like this coffee shop that was open 4 hours a week, 4 days a week, and had a huge store with almost no seating. I didn't know I was supposed to feel guilty about accepting that I was buying coffee from a company with no viable business model.

The list of accepted papers at the Algorithmic Learning Theory Conference, a.k.a. #ALT2026, is out! h/t @thejonullman.bsky.social (PC chair). algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2026/acce... "ALT: topics so hot, it has to be held in Canada in February"

"It's the first drug in quite a while that has really promising signs to help actually reverse the signs of MS, whereas a lot of the drugs out there at the moment just help reduce your symptoms, not necessarily reverse it." auscricket.com.au/news/jemma-b...

Why would you ever do this? The goal of having a conference should be to bring as much of the community as possible together. Why put it in a city known for prohibitive costs, narcissism, and having an overwhelming number of other things to do?

Huge congratulations to my student Konstantina Bairaktari for defending her thesis on Monday!🍾🥳🎊 I'm kinda jealous that Konstantina is headed to Aarhus to do a postdoc with the amazing @kasperglarsen.bsky.social. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Announcing (w @adamsmith.xyz @thejonullman.bsky.social) the 2025 edition of the Foundations of Responsible Computing Job Market Profiles! Check out 40 job market candidates in mathematical research in computation and society writ large! Link: drive.google.com/file/d/1zvsr...

🚨 I am co-chairing ALT 2026 this year with Matus Telgarsky. The submission server is open so please submit your best work! Deadline: Oct 2, 2025 AoE Confernece: Feb 23-26, 2026 in Toronto! Website: algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2026/

In their defense, I don't remember what my contribution was either 🤷

Another thought-provoking* talk by @thejonullman.bsky.social at the #EnCOREPrivacy25 workshop, on auditing differentially private algorithms by designing membership inference attacks(and why we should, and how). encoredp.github.io *The thoughts! They were provoked!

With @adamsmith.xyz and @thejonullman.bsky.social, we have compiled a set of profiles of 29 people in the "foundations of responsible computing" community ("mathematical research in computation and society writ large") who are on the faculty job market. Link: drive.google.com/file/d/1Hyvg... 1/3

i recently gave a talk about questions like this at a workshop organized by the amazing "learning theory alliance" (let-all.com), and several students reached out to tell me how much my talk resonated with them. link to the slides here: docs.google.com/presentation...

I received a splashy email announcing our new dept website www.khoury.northeastern.edu Perfect microcosm of NEU: very slick, but doesn't accurately list members of each research area, even though faculty said this was a top priority. This is what an administrator-driven university looks like.

Postdoc positions @ EPFL (soft deadline Jan 20) available in vibrant theory group that covers complexity, quantum, algorithms, theory of ML ... and includes faculty E. Abbe, A. Chiesa, F. Eisenbrand, M. Göös, M. Kapralov, O. Svensson, and last but not least T. Vidick. go.epfl.ch/theory-postdoc

Interested in a post-doc position in theoretical computer science? Want to find out why they call it "Wonderful Copenhagen"? Look here! Application deadline January 10. Hiring in multiple areas including geometry, complexity, learning, and privacy. jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...

I’ll be at #NeurIPS2024 this week! Looking forward to presenting my joint work with Thomas Steinke(@stein.ke) and Jon Ullman(@thejonullman.bsky.social) NeurIPS page with video: neurips.cc/virtual/2024... Link to arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2406.07407

Is there a more pointless criticism than "this paper doesn't have a conclusion section" to put in a review?

My personal experience is that I spent a year outside of academia before my PhD precisely so that I could experience the boundaries of a 40hr week and not be preoccupied with work I could be doing. I was just as preoccupied, so I figured I should at least be preoccupied with something of value.

Charles River Privacy Day 2024 was a great success! Thanks to all the awesome speakers @thegautamkamath.bsky.social, @jalajupadhyay.bsky.social, Priyanka Nanayakkara, and Ginger Smith! Also thanks to Mahdi Haghifam for organizing!

What bothers me about terms like "compute" isn't really the abuse of language, but the way some communities create a constant stream of shibboleths to keep up with that act like a membership fee for the club.

I'm sure this varies, but when I applied for tenure I had to submit a 1000-page dossier with every paper I'd published, every grant proposal I'd submitted, every teaching evaluation, and supportive evidence for every service role I claimed I had. Would have been nice if I'd kept a folder 😬

Really good advice, for life as junior faculty, and basically everything else.

This is a really fantastic act of service to the community that we happily aped for the FORC community. Thanks Vasilis!

With production values and colleagues like these, how can you not want to come to UMich CSE? www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h3q...

📣 We're putting together a list of job market candidates in Foundations of Responsible Computing! This is inspired by the awesome lists for AGT maintained by @gkatzelis.bsky.social! If you're interested in being included, or want to nominate someone, use this form! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I've noticed a split between people who primarily think of themselves as working in academia the concept vs. people who think of themselves as working for the university per se. Life is a balance, but I prefer the former. Turns out this has a (grandiose) name! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_P...

I don't know if this is any different, but I made it into a "starter pack" in case that's helpful: go.bsky.app/6A6GRSi

@rrwilliams.bsky.social @tsteinke.bsky.social @thesasho.bsky.social @thejonullman.bsky.social

The learning theory alliance has a terrific looking mentorship session online this Wednesday: let-all.com/fall24.html I'll be speaking on an 11:30 panel on individual vs. collaborative approaches to research. Spoiler: I'll pushing collaborative research.

We asked Russell Impagliazzo to write up his memories of Steven Rudich for our blog. He came back with a very honest and personal seven-page remembrance. fortnow.com/weblog/m... Blog post: blog.computationalco...

New twitter, who dis?