EECS Main > People > Faculty > Jason D. Hartline

Jason D. Hartline
Assistant Professor

Dr. Hartline's current research interests lie in the intersection of the fields of theoretical computer science, game theory, and economics. With the Internet developing as the single most important arena for resource sharing among parties with diverse and selfish interests, traditional algorithmic and distributed systems approaches are insufficient. Instead, in protocols for the Internet, game-theoretic and economic issues must be considered. A fundamental research endeavor in this new field is the design and analysis of auction mechanisms and pricing algorithms.

His hobbies include playing sports such as ice hockey, soccer, volleyball, and ultimate; appreciating arts such as fashion, theater, and dance; and participating in sporty-arts such as lindy hop and aerial acrobatics.

Dr. Hartline joined the EECS department (and MEDS, by courtesy) in January of 2008. He was a researcher at Microsoft Research, Silicon Valley from 2004 to 2007, where his research covered foundational topic of algorithmic mechanism design and applications to auctions for sponsored search. He was an active researcher in the San Francisco bay area algorithmic game theory community and was a founding organizer of the Bay Algorithmic Game Theory Symposium. In 2003, he held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Aladdin Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 2003 with advisor Anna Karlin and B.S.s in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1997.


Publications. (in reverse-chronological order)

Selling Banner Ads: Online Algorithms with Buyback, with Moshe Banaioff and Robert Kleinberg. Workshop on Ad Auctions 2008 (no proceedings). [pdf]

Position Auctions and Non-uniform Conversion Rates, with Liad Blumrosen and Shuzhen Nong. Workshop on Ad Auctions 2008 (no proceedings). [ps] [pdf]

Optimal Mechanism Design and Money Burning, with Tim Roughgarden. STOC 2008. [ps] [pdf] (Full version recommended [link])

Optimal Marketing Strategies over Social Networks, with Vahab Mirrokni and Mukund Sundararajan. WWW 2008. [pdf]

Auctions for Structured Procurement, with Matthew Cary, Abraham Flaxman, and Anna Karlin. SODA 2008. [ps] [pdf]

Book Chapter: Profit Maximization in Mechanism Design, with Anna Karlin. In Algorithmic Game Theory, Editors: Noam Nisan, Tim Roughgarden, Eva Tardos, and Vijay Vizarani, October 2007. [web site] (Based loosely on Topics in Algorithmic Game Theory course notes [pdf] [ps])

Reducing Mechanism Design to Algorithm Design via Machine Learning, with Nina Balcan, Avrim Blum, and Yishay Mansour. JCSS, To appear. [ps] [pdf]

Algorithmic Pricing via Virtual Valuations, with Shuchi Chawla and Robert Kleinberg. EC 2007. [ps] [pdf]

Bayesian Optimal No-deficit Mechanism Design, with Shuchi Chawla, R. Ravi, and Uday Rajan. WINE 2006. [ps] [pdf]

Transcript of panel discussion: Models for Sponsored Search: What are the right questions? Speakers: Kamal Jain, David Pennock, Michael Schwarz, and Rakesh Vohra. EC 2006. [ps] [pdf]

Competitive Auctions, with Andrew Goldberg, Anna Karlin, Mike Saks, and Andrew Wright, Games and Economic Behavior, 2006. [ps] [pdf]

Knapsack Auctions, with Gagan Aggarwal, SODA 2006 [ps] [pdf]

On the competitive ratio of the random sampling auction, with Uriel Feige, Abraham Flaxman, and Robert Kleinberg, WINE 2005 [ps] [pdf]

Mechanism Design via Machine Learning, with Maria-Florina Balcan, Avrim Blum, and Yishay Mansour, FOCS 2005 [pdf] (Full version recommended [ps] [pdf])

Near-Optimal Pricing in Near-Linear Time, with Vladlen Koltun, WADS 2005 [ps] [pdf]

From Optimal Limited to Unlimited Supply Auctions, with Robert McGrew, EC 2005. [ps] [pdf]

Derandomization of Auctions, with Gagan Aggarwal, Amos Fiat, Andrew Goldberg, Nicole Immorlica, and Madhu Sudan, STOC 2005. [ps] [pdf]

Near-Optimal Online Auctions, with Avrim Blum, SODA 2005. [ps] [pdf]

On Profit-Maximizing Envy-Free Pricing, with Venkat Guruswami, Anna Karlin, David Kempe, Claire Kenyon, and Frank McSherry, SODA 2005. [ps] [pdf]

Collusion-Resistant Mechanisms for Single Parameter Agents, with Andrew Goldberg, SODA 2005. [ps] [pdf]
(Full Version: MSR-TR-2004-40)

A Lower Bound on the Competitive Ratio of Truthful Auctions, with Andrew Goldberg, Anna Karlin, and Mike Saks, STACS 2004. [ps] [pdf]

Optimization in the Private Value Model: Competitive Analysis Applied to Auction Design, Ph.D. Thesis, Aug. 2003. [ps] [pdf]

Envy-Free Auctions for Digital Goods, with Andrew Goldberg, EC 2003. [ps] [pdf]

Competitiveness via Consensus, with Andrew Goldberg, SODA 2003. [ps] [pdf]

Characterizing History Independent Data Structures, with Edwin Hong, Alexander Mohr, William Pentney, and Emily Rocke, ISAAC 2002. (© Springer-Verlag) [ps] [pdf]
(Full version appears in special issue of Algorithmica [ps] [pdf])

Truthful and Competitive Double Auctions, with Kaustubh Deshmukh, Andrew Goldberg, and Anna Karlin, ESA 2002. (© Springer-Verlag) [ps] [pdf]
(Full version [ps] [pdf])

Competitive Generalized Auctions, with Amos Fiat, Andrew Goldberg, and Anna Karlin, STOC 2002. [ps] [pdf]

Competitive Auctions for Multiple Digital Goods, with Andrew Goldberg, ESA 2001. (© Springer-Verlag) [ps] [pdf]

An Experimental Study of Data Migration Algorithms, with Eric Anderson, Joe Hall, Michael Hobbes, Anna Karlin, Jared Saia, Ram Swaminathan, and John Wilkes. Workshop on Algorithm Engineering, WAE 2001. [ps] [pdf]

Competitive Auctions and Digital Goods, with Andrew Goldberg and Andrew Wright, SODA 2001. [ps] [pdf]
(Full Version, see Competitive Auctions, above)

On Algorithms for Efficient Data Migration, with Joe Hall, Anna Karlin, Jared Saia, and John Wilkes, SODA 2001. [ps] [pdf]

[jason]

Contact Information.
Jason D. Hartline
Ford Suite 3-329
2133 Sheridan Rd.
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
McCormick School of Engineering
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60208.
Phone: (847) 467-0280
Fax: (847) 491-5258
hartline [at] eecs.northwestern.edu

Affiliations.
Economics Group (in EECS)
Theoretical Computer Science Group (in EECS)
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept.
McCormick School of Engineering
The Math Center (in Kellogg)
Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Dept.
Kellogg School of Management

Courses.
Fall '06: Topics in Algorithmic Game Theory [notes.pdf]
Winter '08: Introduction to Algorithms
Spring '08: Algorithmic Mechanism Design
Fall '08: Data Structures

Lecture Notes.
Lectures on Optimal Mechanism Design [ps] [pdf]
Lectures on Frugal Mechanism Design [ps] [pdf]

Conferences.
ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, 2008 (Program committee & local arrangements)
The Bay Algorithmic Game Theory Symposium (Organizer)

Graduate Students. (application information)
Dr. Hartline is accepting graduate students for the Fall of 2008. Email for information and apply using link above.

Past Summer Students.
Mukund Sundararajan, Stanford University.
Ning Chen, University of Washington.
Abraham Flaxman, Microsoft Research.
Gagan Aggarwal, Google Inc.

Research Areas.
Algorithmic Mechanism Design
Applied Mechanism Design
Online and Randomized Algorithms

Selected Talks.
EC 2005 Tutorial: Optimal Mechanism Design without Priors [slides.pdf] [bib.pdf]

Curriculum Vitae. [ps] [pdf]

 
Northwestern University Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering
and Applied Science Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department