About


I am currently a SNSF postdoctoral fellow at MIT CSAIL, supervised by Stefanie Jegelka. Previously, I completed my PhD at EPFL, where I was supervised by Andreas Loukas and Pierre Vandergheynst. My research focus is at the intersection of combinatorial optimization and machine learning, where I develop novel methods that utilize neural networks to solve diverse combinatorial and algorithmic problems. Recently, I have been working on:

  • Designing neural network-based algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems that can provide solution quality certificates and/or worst-case guarantees.
  • Leveraging (convex) relaxations and SDP hierarchies to solve combinatorial problems with neural networks.
  • Rounding/discretization of neural net solutions to combinatorial problems.

If you are a student interested in working with me in any of those areas feel free to shoot me an email!

Outside of research, I love doing parkour and playing the drums. I will occassionaly post more content related to my research on this website such as tutorials or practical guides for combinatorial ML. However, I may occassionaly write something about other topics (love the Matrix Trilogy!).



Email: stalence(at)mit(dot)edu