People

László Székely

	Professor Department of Mathematics University of South Carolina
	Office: LC 305 Phone: 803-777-6262 Email: szekely@math.sc.edu Homepage: http://www.math.sc.edu/~szekely/

C.Sc.	Mathematics	Hungarian Academy of Sciences	1987
Ph.D.	Mathematics	Eötvös University, Budapest	1983
M.S.	Mathematics	Eötvös University, Budapest	1980

2005 – 2007	Interim Director	Industrial Mathematics Institute, Univ. of South Carolina
2002 – 2003	Visiting Fellow	National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda MD
1996 – Present	Professor	Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina
1994 – 1996	Director	Institute of Mathematics I, Eötvös University, Budapest
1992 – 1993	Visiting Assoc. Professor	University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
1991 – 1992	Alexander von Humboldt Fellow	Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität, Institu für Ökonometrie und Operations Research, and Institut für Diskrete Mathematik, Bonn, Germany
1991 – 1996	Senior Associate Professor	Eötvös University, Budapest
1990	Visitor	Memphis State University, TN
1988 – 1990	Visiting Assoc. Professor	University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
1986 – 1987	Postdoctoral Fellow	University of Auckland, New Zealand
1984 – 1991	Associate Professor	Eötvös University, Budapest
1982 – 1984	Research Fellow	József Attila University, Szeged

Combinatorial geometry: Erdos type problems in geometry, density of sets without certain distances, maximum number of unit distances or minimum number of distinct distances in finite point sets, Szemeredi-Trotter type theorems
Graph drawing: crossing numbers of graphs, applications of crossing numbers of graphs to discrete geometry, graph drawing algorithms on surfaces, books, etc., approximation algorithms for crossing number problems
Phylogeny reconstruction: stochastic models of the evolution of biomolecular sequences, identifiability conditions for reconstructible past, polynomial time algorithms for phylogeny reconstruction, the length of biomolecular sequences necessary for phylogeny reconstruction for all methods and for particular methods, Fourier-Hadamard transform
Discrete probability: stochastic models for biomolecular sequence evolution, derandomization of randomized algorithms for graph drawing, Lovasz Local Lemma
Design and analysis of algorithms: algorithms for graph drawing, approximation algorithms for crossing number problems, algorithms for phylogeny reconstruction
Combinatorial optimization: the multiway cut problem, integral uniform multicommodity flow problem
Extremal problems (graphs and set systems): Erdos-Ko-Rado type theorems, Sperner and LYM type theorems, extremal graph theory

NSF DMS1000475, "Extremal and Probabilistic Combinatorics II," (2010-2013) - (1) finding connections between Sperner theory (extremal problems for families of sets) and mixed orthogonal arrays (tools used by statisticians to design experiments with desirable properties for statistical evaluation); and (2) using the Lovasz Local Lemma for negative dependency graphs for asymptotic enumeration, searching for novel negative dependency graphs.
FA9550-12-1-0405 by DARPA and AFOSR, "Ensemble-Based Modeling of Large Graphs and Its Applications to Social Networks," Phase I 2012-2013, in collaboration with Notre Dame University, RPI, University of Houston, and Renyi Institute, Budapest. (1) generation of graphs and networks with prescribed properties, with uniform or near-uniform distributions, modeling random networks; (2) finding practical applications of the Lovasz Local Lemma; (3) work on fundamental issues of pattern extraction from noise; and (4) defining novel concepts of distances of networks for the purpose of periodic distance detection.

"People’s Republic Scholar" 1978–79 and 1979–80
"Alexander von Humboldt Fellow", 1991–92, 2010
"Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences", 1998
"Russell Research Award", University of South Carolina, 2007
Elsevier "Top Cited Paper in Adv. Appl. Math. Award" 2010 (for the paper L. A. Szekely and Hua Wang, On subtrees of trees, Adv. Appl. Math. 34, (2005), 138-155.)

H. Aydinian, E. Czabarka, P. L. Erdos, L. A. Szekely, A tour of M-part L-Sperner families, J. Comb Theory Ser A. 118(2011), 702-725.
M. A. Steel, L. A. Szekely, E. Mossel, Phylogenetic information complexity: is testing a tree easier than finding it? J. Theor. Biology 25(2009), 95-102.
P. L. Erdos, M. A. Steel, L. A. Szekely, and T. J. Warnow, A few logs suffice to build (almost) all trees I, Random Structures and Algorithms 14(1999)(2), 153-184.
L. A. Szekely, Crossing numbers and hard Erdos problems in discrete geometry, Combinatorics, Probability, and Computing 6(3)(1997), 353-358.
F. Shahrokhi, O. Sykora, L. A. Szekely and I. Vrto, The crossing number of a graph on a compact 2-manifold, Adv. Math. 123, (1996), 105-119.

Go to the list of 26 preprints and 1 seminar by László Székely.

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