Department of Computer Science | Institute of Theoretical Computer Science

Dr. Ahad N. Zehmakan

Papers

• "On the Spread of Influence in Graphs"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Information and Computation, 2021.
  
  
• "Majority Rule Cellular Automata"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), 2021.
  
  
• "On the Oracle Complexity of Higher-Order Smooth Non-Convex Finite-Sum Optimization"
  Nicolas Emmenegger, Rasmus Kyng and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Beyond first-order methods in ML systems workshop, ICML, 2021.
  
  
• "Majority Vote in Social Networks: Make Random Friends or Be Stubborn to Overpower Elites"
  Charlotte Out and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 30th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI '21), 2021. (Acceptance rate: 13.9%)
  
  
• "Majority Opinion Diffusion in Social Networks: An Adversarial Approach"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI '21), 2021.
  
  
• "Threshold Behavior of Bootstrap Percolation"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Discrete Mathematics (DM), 2020.
  
  
• "Rumor spreading: a trigger for proliferation or fading away"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan and Serge Galam.
  Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 2020.
  
  
• "Threshold Behavior of Democratic Opinion Dynamics"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Journal of Statistical Physics (JSP), 2020.
  
  
• "Transition Operations over Plane Trees"
  Torrie L. Nichols, Alexander Pilz, Csaba D. Toth, and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Discrete Mathematics (DM), 2020.
  
  
• "Opinion Forming in Erdős-Rényi Random Graph and Expanders"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Discrete Applied Mathematics (DAM), 2019.
  
  
• "Two Phase Transitions in Two-way Bootstrap Percolation"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 30th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '19), Shanghai, China, 2019.
  Best Student Paper Award
  
  
• "Target Set in Threshold Models"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, 2019.
  
  
• "Switches in Eulerian graphs"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan, Jerri Nummenpalo, Alexander Pilz, and Daniel Wolleb-Graf.
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, 2019.
  
  
• "Tight Bounds on the Minimum Size of a Dynamic Monopoly"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  13th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '19), Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2019.
  
  
• "Dynamic Monopolies in Two-way Bootstrap Percolation"
  Clemens Jeger and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Discrete Applied Mathematics (DAM), 2019.
  
  
• "Opinion Forming in Erdős-Rényi Random Graph and Expanders"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 29th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '18), Yilan County, Taiwan, 2018.
  Best Student Paper Award
  
  
• "Transition Operations over Plane Trees"
  Torrie L. Nichols, Alexander Pilz, Csaba D. Toth, and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2018.
  
  
• "Majority Model on Random Regular Graphs"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2018.
  
  
• "(Biased) Majority Rule Cellular Automata"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Submitted, 2017.
  
  
• "Color War: Cellular Automata with Majority-Rule"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  11th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '17), Umeå, Sweden, 2017.
  
  
• "Bin Packing Problem: A Linear Constant-space 3/2 - Approximation Algorithm"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan and Mojtaba Eslahi-Kelorazi.
  International Journal on Computational Science and Applications (IJCSA), 2016.
  
  
• "Bin Packing Problem: Two Approximation Algorithms"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  International Journal on Foundations of Computer Science and Technology (IJFCST), 2016.
  
  

Teaching

• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2020, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Advanced Graph Algorithms and Optimization Seminar, Fall 2020, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Advanced Graph Algorithms and Optimization, Spring 2020, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Algorithms, Probability, and Computing, Fall 2019, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2018, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Algorithms, Probability, and Computing, Fall 2018, ETH Zürich (Head Assistant).
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2017, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Algorithms, Probability, and Computing, Fall 2017, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics, Fall 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Spring 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Language and Automata Theory, Spring 2015, Sharif University of Technology.
  
  

Supervised Students

• "Dynamics of Majority Voting in Social Networks "
  Semester Project, Charlotte Out, 2021.
  Supervisors: Rasmus Kyng and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Lower Bounds for Higher-Order Methods in Non-Convex Finite-Sum Optimization"
  Bachelor Thesis, Nicolas Emmenegger, 2020.
  Supervisors: Rasmus Kyng and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Bootstrap Percolation on Complex Networks"
  Master Thesis, Swaneet K. Sahoo, 2019.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Threshold and Majority Rules on Tori"
  Master Thesis, Clemens Jeger, 2018.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Color War: Majority Cellular Automata"
  Bachelor Thesis, Laurin Köhler-Schindler, 2016.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  

Selected Talks

• "Majority Opinion Diffusion in Social Networks: An Adversarial Approach"
  The 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI '2021), virtual conference, January 2021.
  
  
• "Two Phase Transitions in Two-way Bootstrap Percolation"
  The 30th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '19), Shanghai, China, December 2019.
  
  
• "Target Set in Threshold Models"
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, August 2019.
  
  
• "Switches in Eulerian Graphs"
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, August 2019.
  
  
• "Tight Bounds on the Minimum Size of a Dynamic Monopoly"
  13th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '19), Saint Petersburg, Russia, March 2019.
  
  
• "Opinion Forming in Erdős-Rényi Random Graph and Expanders"
  The 29th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '18), Yilan County, Taiwan, December 2018.
  
  
• "Majority Model on Random Regular Graphs"
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2018.
  
  
• "Transition Operations over Plane Trees"
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2018.
  
  
• "Bootstrap Percolation"
  Mittagsseminar, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, May 2018.
  
  
• "Opinion Spreading in Random Geometry"
  Mittagsseminar, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, June 2017.
  
  
• "Color War: Cellular Automata with Majority Rule"
  11th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '17), Umeå, Sweden, March 2017.