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Benjamin Rossman

Associate Professor of Computer Science
Computer Science
Room D110, LSRC, Durham, NC 27708
Room D110, LSRC, 308 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27708
Office hours Please email me for office hours.  

Overview


My research interests lie in computational complexity and logic, specifically the areas of circuit complexity (the quest for lower bounds in combinatorial models of computation) and finite model theory (the study of logical definability on finite structures). My work is supported by NSERC Discovery and Accelerator Grants, the Ontario Early Researcher Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Associate Professor of Computer Science · 2020 - Present Computer Science, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Associate Professor of Mathematics · 2020 - Present Mathematics, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Recent Publications


Equi-Rank Homomorphism Preservation Theorem on Finite Structures

Conference Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs · February 3, 2025 The Homomorphism Preservation Theorem (HPT) of classical model theory states that a first-order sentence is preserved under homomorphisms if, and only if, it is equivalent to an existential-positive sentence. This theorem remains valid when restricted to f ... Full text Cite

Formula Size-Depth Tradeoffs for Iterated Sub-permutation Matrix Multiplication

Conference Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing · June 10, 2024 Iterated Sub-Permutation Matrix Multiplication is the problem of computing the product of k n-by-n Boolean matrices with at most a single 1 in each row and column. For all d ≤ logk, this problem is solvable by size nO(dk1/d) monotone AC0 formulas of depth ... Full text Cite

Symmetric Formulas for Products of Permutations

Conference Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs · January 1, 2023 We study the formula complexity of the word problem WordSn,k : (0, 1)kn2 → (0, 1): given n-by-n permutation matrices M1,..., Mk, compute the (1, 1)-entry of the matrix product M1 · · · Mk. An important feature of this function is that it is invariant under ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


NSF Student Travel Grant for 2023 Conference on Computational Complexity

ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2025

Rossman Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (transfer)

FellowshipPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation · 2020 - 2021

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Education, Training & Certifications


Massachusetts Institute of Technology · 2010 Ph.D.

External Links


Personal website