Ellis Hershkowitz Wins An NSF CAREER Award For New Graph Algorithms For Faster Networks
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on July 13, 2026
“The field of graph algorithms aims to understand how to efficiently construct and use networks,” says Brown CS faculty member Ellis Hershkowitz, “as well as what properties make for a good network.”
He’s just received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for a project that aims to advance graph algorithms by way of a new theory of “length-constrained” graph algorithms. CAREER Awards are given in support of outstanding junior faculty teacher-scholars who excel at research, education, and integration of the two within the context of an organizational mission.
“Length constraints,” Ellis explains, “are a way of encouraging communication to happen quickly in networks. However, most classic graph algorithms do not work in the presence of length constraints. This project aims to build new graph algorithms that work in the presence of length constraints and, in doing so, provide new algorithms for solving classic problems as fast as possible.”
Ellis aims to develop the proposed solutions by leveraging the theory of graph cuts and metric embeddings. The project will have two main thrusts:
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Developing a new approach to length-constrained cuts as the foundation of new techniques in iterative linear programming methods under length constraints
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Developing a theory of metric embeddings for length-constrained distances using a new paradigm for embedding graphs into spanning trees
A member of the Brown CS faculty since 2023, Ellis is broadly interested in theoretical computer science, with a focus on graph-theoretic questions in approximation algorithms, online algorithms, distributed algorithms, and metric embeddings. His related research includes
“Ghost Value Augmentation for k-Edge-Connectivity”, “Low-Step Multi-Commodity Flow Emulators”, “One Tree to Rule Them All: Poly-Logarithmic Universal Steiner Tree”, and “Spanning Tree Embeddings Are Not Much Harder than Hierarchical Partitions”. Recently, he gave invited talks at ETH Zürich, INSAIT, Princeton University, and Boston University, and his latest teaching includes CSCI 2952-T An Algorithmist’s Toolkit, CSCI 0220 Discrete Structures and Probability, and CSCI 1952-C Frontiers of Graph Algorithms.
Ellis joins numerous previous Brown CS winners of the award, including (most recently) Serena Booth, Chen Sun, Ritambhara Singh, Peihan Miao, and Vasileios Kemerlis.
For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communications Manager Jesse C. Polhemus.
