Contact: rtweber2 [at] cs [dot] washington [dot] edu
I'm an assistant teaching professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.
I earned my Ph.D. in 2020 as part of UW CSE's Theory Group; I was advised by Shayan Oveis Gharan and Anna Karlin.
I spend most of my time teaching a wide array of theory and theory-adjacent CSE courses. I try to make theoretical CS approachable, interesting, and useful for all of my students.
I do research on CS education, focused on practical ways to make theory courses better. When I still do theory research, it is advising undergraduates in algorithm design for graph problems and combinatorial questions.
CV (updated June 2024)
Publications and Pre-prints
Using Alternative Grading in a Non-Major Algorithms Course
SIGCSE 2023
paper in ACM DL, talk slides (pdf)
Pairing Things Off: Counting Stable Matchings, Finding Your
Ride, and Designing Tournaments
Ph.D. Thesis
Dissertation pdf
A Simply Exponential Upper Bound on the Maximum Number of Stable Matchings
With Anna Karlin and Shayan Oveis Gharan
STOC 2018
Arxiv version STOC version
STOC talk video
STOC slides (pdf)
Embedded-width: A variant of treewidth for plane graphs
With Glencora Borradaile, Jeff Erickson, and Hung Le
Arxiv version
Talk Notes
Every week the theory group has a talk where a group member describes a (hopefully) cute and interesting result over lunch. Notes from some of my talks are below. Trying to fit the contents of these notes into the 30 minute time slot is still an open problem.
Designing Better (Sports) Tournaments
Stable Matchings With Couples
Perfect Graphs Part 1: The Weak Perfect Graph Theorem
Teaching
For 2024-2025, I'll be teaching CSE 311 in Fall, CSE 312 in Winter, and CSE 332 in Spring.
In the past, I've taught:
CSE 311 (Foundations of Computing I):
WI 24,
AU 23,
WI 23,
SP 22,
WI 22, AU 20
CSE 312 (Foundations of Computing II):
SP 24,
SP 23,
SP 21
CSE 332 (Data Structures and Parallelism): AU 21,
SU 18
CSE 373 (Data Structures, for non-CSE majors): SU 19
CSE 417 (Algorithms and Complexity, for non-CSE majors):
WI 24,
AU 22,
AU 21,
WI 21
CSE 421 (Introduction to Algorithms): WI 23, AU 22
Contact
If you have a question about enrolling in one of my classes, you probably need to talk to CSE's advising staff, not me.
If you're considering asking me for a letter of recommendation read this.
Thinking about trying research? I have some general advice.
Interested in TAing for me? Send me an email when the TA application opens! Or read this.
Fun
PoCSci Talks
Every year, UW CSE Ph.D. students hold PoCSci (a conference on "research" that is Potentially Computer Science) and HotPoCSci (a workshop on hot topics in PoCSci). These are absolutely, totally 100% serious conferences, with definitely-real and possibly-reviewed research. They are not just joke talks about grad school life given at the usual happy hour time. Slides and notes from my talks are below:
HotPoCSci 2018: A New Branch of Graph Theory
Winner of Best Presentation
written with help from John Thickstun
Slides (PPTX) Script (PDF)
An examination of graph theory naming conventions and powerpoint transitions
HotPoCSci 2019: A Workshop Proposal
co-written and co-presented with Jennifer Brennan
Slides (PPTX) Script (PDF)
A call for improvements to the current method of eating leftover lunches.
PoCSci 2019: A New Course Offering
Winner of Best Presentation
Slides (PPTX) Script (PDF)
An idea for improving grad student quality of life.
PoCSci 2022: Active Learning for Active Learning
Not to be confused with Jennifer Brennan's talk, "Active Learning for Active Learning"
Slides (PPTX)
Script (PDF)
PoCSci 2023: Make It Fit
An attempt to fit our papers into the page limits without altering the content.
Slides (PPTX), Script (PDF)
I have blog, which gets on average less than 1 post per year. So far I mainly use it to try to convince everyone the probability of getting a perfect March Madness bracket is much much better than 1 in 9 quintillion.
When I'm not teaching computer science or staring at a whiteboard, I do have hobbies!
- I am the de facto equipment manager, unofficial official scorer, and occasional official co-captain for CSE's intramural softball team (the National Softball Agency).
- I make it to almost every UW football game.
- I knit (mainly during football games and research talks).
