David Eppstein

About

David Eppstein is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UC Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1989 and his B.S. in Mathematics from Stanford University in 1984. His research interests include graph algorithms, graph theory, discrete and computational geometry, graph drawing and information visualization, and data structures. Eppstein has been recognized as a Fellow of the ACM in 2012, a Fellow of the AAAS in 2017, and was named a Distinguished Professor in 2020. His work has earned him several awards, including the SIAM Best Paper Award in 2022. He is known for his contributions to algorithm design and computational complexity theory, and he has been involved in collaborative research projects, including a $1.2 million NSF grant studying geometric graphs.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Humanities
• Artificial Intelligence
• Combinatorics
• Theoretical computer science
• Discrete mathematics
• Algorithm

Selected publications

• Minor-Closed Graph Classes with Bounded Layered Pathwidth

  SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics · 2020 · 13 citations

  We prove that a minor-closed class of graphs has bounded layered pathwidth if and only if some apex-forest is not in the class. This generalises a theorem of Robertson and Seymour, which says that a minor-closed class of graphs has bounded pathwidth if and only if some forest is not in the class.

  DOI

• Parameterized Leaf Power Recognition via Embedding into Graph Products

  Algorithmica · 2020 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Product Structure Extension of the Alon–Seymour–Thomas Theorem

  SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics · 2024-07-09 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Alon, Seymour, and Thomas [J. Amer. Math. Soc., 3 (1990), pp. 801-808] proved that every n-vertex graph excluding Kt as a minor has treewidth less than t3/2 \\surdn. Illingworth, Scott, and Wood [Product Structure of Graphs with an Excluded Minor, preprint, arXiv:2104.06627, 2022] recently refined this result by showing that every such graph is a subgraph of some graph with treewidth t - 2, where each vertex is blown up by a complete graph of order \\scrO(\\surdtn). Solving an open problem of Il…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What is... Treewidth?

  Notices of the American Mathematical Society · 2025-01-10 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The treewidth of a graph, a positive integer defined using a tree of sets of vertices, is central to graph structure theory and the parametrized complexity of algorithms.

  PublisherDOI

• Non-crossing Hamiltonian Paths and Cycles in Output-Polynomial Time

  Algorithmica · 2024-07-18 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We show that, for planar point sets, the number of non-crossing Hamiltonian paths is polynomially bounded in the number of non-crossing paths, and the number of non-crossing Hamiltonian cycles (polygonalizations) is polynomially bounded in the number of surrounding cycles. As a consequence, we can list the non-crossing Hamiltonian paths or the polygonalizations, in time polynomial in the output size, by filtering the output of simple backtracking algorithms for non-crossing paths or sur…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• AF:SMALL:Sparse Geometric Graph Algorithms

  NSF · $416k · 2016–2020

• Geometrics Algorithms in Statistics, Meshing, and Parametric Optimization

  NSF · $222k · 2000–2004

• AF: Small: Collaborative Research: Efficient Algorithms for Cycles on Surfaces

  NSF · $160k · 2016–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Michael T. Goodrich

  University of California, Irvine

  134 shared

• Giuseppe F. Italiano

  58 shared

• Zvi Galil

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  57 shared

• Marshall Bern

  50 shared

• Raffaele Giancarlo

  University of Palermo

  45 shared

• Erik D. Demaine

  38 shared

• Michael J. Bannister

  University of California, Irvine

  31 shared

• Stephen Kobourov

  University of Arizona

  23 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  University of California, Irvine

  1989

• M.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Irvine

  1984

• B.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Irvine

  1982

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the ACM (2012)
• Fellow of the AAAS (2017)
• Distinguished Professor (2020)
• Best Paper Award for 'On the Biplanarity of Blowups' (2023)
• SIAM Best Paper Award (2022)

Similar researchers at University of California, Irvine

• Pierre Baldih-121
• Gene Tsudikh-82
• Padhraic Smythh-78