Elchanan Mossel
I study mathematical and algorithmic problems arising in the theory of computing, as well as in such areas as molecular biology, evolution and social choice. I am particularly interested in problems of combinatorial and and probabilistic flavor as well as in inference problems. In mathematical biology, I investigate mathematical questions centered around molecular evolution, such as: Is it possible to reconstruct the ancient evolution of bacteria from the DNA sequences of current bacteria species? How much of human genealogy can be reconstructed from the DNA sequences of the world's population? In the social choice setting, I studied with collaborators voting schemes, aggregation of information and paradoxes. These problems as well as problem in hardness of approximation in computer science are studied using discrete Fourier analysis.
Recent Publications
- [with R. O'Donnell and K. Oleszkiewicz] Noise stability of functions with low influences: invariance and optimality (2008). To appear in Ann. Math. http://arxiv.org/abs/math.PR/0503503
- [with M. Braverman and O. Etesami] Mafia: A theoretical study of players and coalitions in a partial information environment. Ann. Appl. Probab. 18 (3) 825-846 (2008). http://arxiv.org/abs/math.PR/0609534
- [with S. Roch] On the Submodularity of Influence in Social Networks. Proceedings of the thirty-ninth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing, 128-134 (2007). http://arxiv.org/abs/math.PR/0612046
- Distorted metrics on trees and phylogenetic forests. IEEE Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 4, 108-116 (2007). http://arxiv.org/abs/math.CO/0403508