Chara Podimata

About

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I'm a PhD student in the EconCS group at Harvard University, where I am advised by Professor Yiling Chen. My research interests lie mostly on the intersection of Theoretical Computer Science, Economics and Machine Learning and specifically on learning under the presence of strategic agents, online learning and mechanism design.

Before joining Harvard, I was an intern for Google in Athens, Greece. I received my BSc degree from National Technical University of Athens, where I was advised by Professor Dimitris Fotakis.

You can find my CV here [Last update: February 2019].

My birthname is Charikleia Podimata, but I go by Chara. To pronounce my name correctly: Ha (as in Harlem) and ra (as in rabbit).

News

• [January 2019] I was among the finalists for the 2019 Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship.
• [November 2018] Our paper A Bridge between Liquid and Social Welfare in Combinatorial Auctions with Submodular Bidders has been accepted at AAAI-19!
• [September 2018] New paper on arXiv: A Bridge between Liquid and Social Welfare in Combinatorial Auctions with Submodular Bidders. Check it out!
• [June 2018] Our paper Strategyproof Linear Regression in High Dimensions was among the 5 shortlisted papers for the Best Paper Award at EC ' 18!
• [April 2018] Two papers accepted in EC '18! Strategyproof Linear Regression in High Dimensions and Learning to Bid Without Knowing your Value.

Research

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Publications

2019

• A Bridge Βetween Liquid and Social Welfare in Combinatorial Auctions with Submodular Bidders.
  Dimitris Fotakis, Kyriakos Lotidis and Chara Podimata
  In Proc. of the 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-19)

2018

• Strategyproof Linear Regression in High Dimensions.
  Yiling Chen, Chara Podimata, Ariel D. Procaccia and Nisarg Shah.
  In Proc. of the 19th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC '18) .
  Among the 5 shortlisted papers for the Best Paper Award (EC '18).
  Preliminary version appeared in Learning in the presence of strategic behavior, NIPS '17 Workshop.
• Learning to Bid without Knowing your Value.
  Zhe Feng, Chara Podimata and Vasilis Syrgkanis.
  In Proc. of the 19th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC '18) .
  Preliminary version appeared in Learning in the presence of strategic behavior, NIPS '17 Workshop.

Teaching

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• AM 121 -- Introduction to Optimization, Harvard University, Fall 2018
• AM 121 -- Introduction to Optimization, Harvard University, Fall 2017
  • Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from Harvard University

3 Cats and 1 Dog

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I love all animals, but I have a special bond with cats and dogs.

Below I have some photos of our three cats, Nala (the ginger), Jacob (the white) and Ares (the white and grey)!

They are all rescued cats! We rescued Nala when she was 30 days old in Lefkada, Greece. We adopted Jacob when he was 28 days old. Nala is years old and Jacob is . My mom rescued Ares in Volos, Greece, when he was 8 months old. He's now years old!

You will also find photos of the star of the last slide of my presentations, Turing! We rescued Turing from a national road in Crete, when he was around 2 months old. He's now years old! In case you're wondering, he's a Cretan Hound (and he's a very good boy!).