Alkis Kalavasis

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Hi! I am an FDS Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. Before that, I was a PhD student in the Computer Science Department of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) working with Dimitris Fotakis and Christos Tzamos. I completed my undergraduate studies in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the NTUA, where I was advised by Dimitris Fotakis.

Research: I work on statistical and computational learning theory. My research focuses on the design of algorithms with rigorous guarantees for machine learning problems. I am interested in the design of algorithms that are robust to data corruptions (adversarial manipulations, censoring and systematic errors) and algorithms that are stable to changes in the training data (replicability and differential privacy).

Contact me at: alkis.kalavasis [at] yale.edu

My amazing collaborators (in roughly chronological order): Dimitris Fotakis, Christos Tzamos, Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Vasilis Kontonis, Manolis Zampetakis, Jason Milionis, Stratis Ioannidis, Eleni Psaroudaki, Grigoris Velegkas, Amin Karbasi, Hossein Esfandiari, Andreas Krause, Vahab Mirrokni, Constantine Caramanis, Shay Moran, Idan Attias, Steve Hanneke, Andreas Galanis, Anthimos Vardis Kandiros, Ioannis Anagnostides, Tuomas Sandholm, Felix Zhou, Kasper Green Larsen, Ilias Zadik, Anay Mehrotra, Argyris Oikonomou, Katerina Sotiraki.

Teaching

Stability in Machine Learning: Generalization, Privacy & Replicability

  • Lecture 1 (VC Theory and Uniform Convergence) (Jan 14, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 2 (Generalization Bounds via Algorithmic Stability) (Jan 21, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 3 (Stability of SGD and Randomization Tests) (Jan 28, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 4 (Uniform Convergence Failures and Domain Adaptation) (Feb 4, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 5 (Online and Private PAC Learning) (Feb 11, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 6 (DP PAC Learning implies Online Learning) (Feb 18, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 7 (Online Learning implies DP PAC Learning) (Feb 25, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 8 (Replicable and DP PAC Learning) (Mar 4, 2025) [PDF]
  • Spring Break (Mar 11, Mar 18, 2025)
  • Lecture 9 (Memorization, Learning, and Generative Models) (Mar 25, 2025) [PDF]
  • Lecture 10 (A Theory of Learning Curves) (Apr 1, 2025) [PDF]

  • Publications

    Preprints
    1. Characterization of Language Generation with Breadth
      with Anay Mehrotra and Grigoris Velegkas
    2. Transfer Learning Beyond Bounded Density Ratios
      with Ilias Zadik and Manolis Zampetakis
    Conference Publications

      2025

    1. On the Limits of Language Generation: Trade-Offs Between Hallucination and Mode Collapse
      with Anay Mehrotra and Grigoris Velegkas
      STOC 2025
    2. Computational Lower Bounds for No-Regret Learning in Normal-Form Games
      with Ioannis Anagnostides and Tuomas Sandholm
      STOC 2025
      [PDF1] Barriers to Welfare Maximization with No-Regret Learning
      [PDF2] Computational Lower Bounds for Regret Minimization in Normal-Form Games
    3. 2024

    4. Injecting Undetectable Backdoors in Obfuscated Neural Networks and Language Models
      with Amin Karbasi, Argyris Oikonomou, Katerina Sotiraki, Grigoris Velegkas, Manolis Zampetakis
      NeurIPS 2024
    5. On the Computational Landscape of Replicable Learning
      with Amin Karbasi, Grigoris Velegkas and Felix Zhou
      NeurIPS 2024
    6. On Sampling from Ising Models with Spectral Constraints
      with Andreas Galanis and Anthimos Vardis Kandiros
      RANDOM 2024
    7. Smaller Confidence Intervals From IPW Estimators via Data-Dependent Coarsening
      with Anay Mehrotra and Manolis Zampetakis
      COLT 2024
    8. Universal Rates for Real-Valued Regression: Separations between Cut-Off and Absolute Loss
      with Idan Attias, Steve Hanneke, Amin Karbasi and Grigoris Velegkas
      COLT 2024
    9. Replicable Learning of Large-Margin Halfspaces
      with Amin Karbasi, Kasper Green Larsen, Grigoris Velegkas and Felix Zhou
      ICML 2024 Selected as Spotlight
    10. On the Complexity of Computing Sparse Equilibria and Lower Bounds for No-Regret Learning in Games
      with Ioannis Anagnostides, Tuomas Sandholm and Manolis Zampetakis
      ITCS 2024
    11. Learning Hard-Constrained Models with One Sample
      with Andreas Galanis and Anthimos Vardis Kandiros
      SODA 2024
    12. 2023

    13. Optimizing Solution-Samplers for Combinatorial Problems: The Landscape of Policy-Gradient Methods
      with Constantine Caramanis, Dimitris Fotakis, Vasilis Kontonis and Christos Tzamos
      NeurIPS 2023 Selected as Oral
      [Code]
    14. Optimal Learners for Realizable Regression: PAC Learning and Online Learning
      with Idan Attias, Steve Hanneke, Amin Karbasi and Grigoris Velegkas
      NeurIPS 2023 Selected as Oral
    15. Statistical Indistinguishability of Learning Algorithms
      with Amin Karbasi, Shay Moran and Grigoris Velegkas
      ICML 2023
    16. Replicable Bandits
      with Hossein Esfandiari, Amin Karbasi, Andreas Krause, Vahab Mirrokni and Grigoris Velegkas
      ICLR 2023
    17. 2022

    18. Multiclass Learnability Beyond the PAC Framework: Universal Rates and Partial Concept Classes
      with Grigoris Velegkas and Amin Karbasi
      NeurIPS 2022
    19. Learning and Covering Sums of Independent Random Variables with Unbounded Support
      with Konstantinos Stavropoulos and Manolis Zampetakis
      NeurIPS 2022 Selected as Oral
    20. Perfect Sampling from Pairwise Comparisons
      with Dimitris Fotakis and Christos Tzamos
      NeurIPS 2022
    21. Linear Label Ranking with Bounded Noise
      with Dimitris Fotakis, Vasilis Kontonis and Christos Tzamos
      NeurIPS 2022 Selected as Oral
    22. Label Ranking through Nonparametric Regression
      with Dimitris Fotakis and Eleni Psaroudaki
      ICML 2022 Selected for Long Presentation
    23. Differentially Private Regression with Unbounded Covariates
      with Jason Milionis, Dimitris Fotakis and Stratis Ioannidis
      AISTATS 2022
    24. 2021

    25. Efficient Algorithms for Learning from Coarse Labels
      with Dimitris Fotakis, Vasilis Kontonis and Christos Tzamos
      COLT 2021
    26. Aggregating Incomplete and Noisy Rankings
      with Dimitris Fotakis and Konstantinos Stavropoulos
      AISTATS 2021
    27. 2020

    28. Efficient Parameter Estimation of Truncated Boolean Product Distributions
      with Dimitris Fotakis and Christos Tzamos
      COLT 2020
      Algorithmica 2022
    Plain Academic