David Karger (A.B. Summa cum laude in Computer Science, 1989, Harvard University, Ph.D., 1994, in Computer Science, Stanford University) is a Professor of Computer Science at MIT.
Karger splits his research between algorithms and information retrieval. His work in algorithms has focused on applications of randomization to optimization problems and led to significant progress on several core problems. He has also researched applications of theoretical ideas to applied areas such as compilers and networks.
His dissertation received the 1994 ACM doctoral dissertation award and the Mathematical Programming Society's 1997 Tucker Prize. His research in information retrieval has focused on new interfaces and algorithms for helping people sift effectively through large masses of information. His work on the Scatter/Gether browsing system at Xerox PARC led to two patents.
More recently he has been researching retrieval systems that personalize themselves to best fit their individual users' needs and behaviors. He recently received the National Academy of Science's 2004 Award for Initiative in research.
Karger leads CSAIL's Haystack group, which researches many facets of information management including capture, organization, retrieval, sharing, and visualization.
Research Interests:
- The web: Online Discussion Tools, End User Data Management, Simpler Web Stacks, Decentralization.
- Information Management: Personal Information Management, Human Computer Interaction, Databases, Machine Learning, Social Computing, Semantic Web.
- Graph Algorithms and Analysis : Applications in Communication, Coding, Networking, Machine Learning, Biology, Natural Language Processing.
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). in Computer Science, Stanford University, USA
- B.A. summa cum laude in Computer Science and Physics, Harvard University, USA
- T Alrashed, J Almahmoud, AX Zhang, DR Karger (2020) ScrAPIr: Making Web Data APIs Accessible to End Users. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems.
- Sunny Tian, Amy X Zhang, David Karger (2021) A System for Interleaving Discussion and Summarization in Online Collaboration. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.
- Kaitlin Mahar, Amy X Zhang, David Karger (2018) Squadbox: A tool to combat email harassment using friendsourced moderation. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
- Lea Verou, Amy X Zhang, David R Karger (2016) Mavo: creating interactive data-driven web applications by authoring HTML. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
- Farnaz Jahanbakhsh, Amy X Zhang, Adam J Berinsky, Gordon Pennycook, David G Rand, David R Karger (2021) Exploring lightweight interventions at posting time to reduce the sharing of misinformation on social media. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.