Während der Laufzeit seines Projekts mit dem Titel "Dynamic and sublinear algorithms for local problems" wird Gramoz Goranci als Mentor von Peter Kiss an der Universität Wien fungieren.
Peter Kiss hat seinen Bachelor- und Masterabschluss am Worcester College der Universität Oxford gemacht. Seinen Doktortitel in Informatik erwarb er an der Universität Warwick in der Theory and Foundations group (FOCS), wo er von Sayan Bhattacharya betreut wurde.
First of all, welcome to our faculty! What initially inspired you to start engaging with computer science and what excites you about computer science today?
As many computer science students, my first interaction with computer science and algorithms design was through coding competitions I have attended as a high-school student. These competitions focus mainly on graph algorithm problems. While I have attended a mathematics focused high school, I have found both more success and fun in the computational aspect of mathematics. This has naturally led to me studying mathematics and computer science as my undergraduate. At this point, both due to my background and my interests I was certain that I would like a career in something CS related. Throughout and after my undergraduate and master’s degrees I have done some internships in industry. Ultimately, I have realized that I find the mathematical and algorithmic aspect of computer science the most entertaining, which also naturally led me to think about pursuing a PhD.
On what excites me currently about computer science I would say it is the same thing which excited me about it as a high school student. In essence, as computer science researchers we get to pick algorithms problems to spend most of our time on. Obviously, the problems are now open ones, and it can take years to advance on some of them. On the other hand, we also get to propose problems ourselves which requires a different kind of creative thinking than problem solving. And if all goes well, we get to claim a result to ourselves permanently.
What motivated you to apply for a postdoc position at the Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna?
Multiple reasons: Firstly, I have attended talks of and engaged in research with some of the excellent researchers at the department (and other departments in Austria) throughout my PhD (like my mentor Gramoz Goranci). The people here have certainly been the most deciding factor. The position I was offered here also gives me a lot of flexibility and is a three-year contract which is excellent from the perspective of my career as it gives me a great opportunity to establish myself as a researcher. On a more personal note, I have always been fond of Vienna and Austria, many of my relatives live here and it is a great city.
Could you explain what makes an FWF ESPRIT project attractive compared to a typical postdoc position at the University of Vienna or elsewhere?
The two main factors are certainly the three-year length of the contract and the independence it provides. Most post-docs are at most 2 years long which does mean that pretty soon into the program one must devote a significant amount of time to planning, applications and interviews. A longer contract also allows for being more ambitious in terms of research agenda and taking on projects which are less likely to yield results in a shorter span of time, however, may offer greater reward. The independence was also very appealing: when finishing my PhD I still had multiple projects I wanted (and still want) to pursue. If I would have chosen a typical post-doc I would have likely been more tied to my department in terms of projects. Ultimately, it seems I did end up starting more projects within the department than I expected, but of course this is a benefit of the excellent people here.
How did you design your FWF ESPRIT project? What was the entire process like, from the initial inspiration to drafting the project proposal for submission? What makes the project personally interesting to you?
I have designed my project proposal to be a natural extension of the line of research I have conducted throughout my PhD. This involved both discussing promising leads I had before, the ongoing projects I had at the end of my PhD as well as new research agendas aimed at broadening my field of research. Ultimately, I have proposed a series of problems which were related to what I had been working on before but were also sufficiently more than just incremental work on my previous papers.
The process took about two months and maybe almost a complete month worth of full-time work in total. As one would normally approach this, I have chosen the open problems I would like to make part of the proposal first, then aimed at presenting them as a coherent story or line of work.
The project is titled as ‘Dynamic and Sub-Linear Algorithms for Local Problems’. Local here is not a very well-defined concept but essentially means problems which can be parameterized by some local heuristic. In general, both the dynamic and sub-linear models of computation are emerging ones within the literature, and dynamic in particular have been a driving force behind many recent breakthroughs in other models of computing, so it feels like the right time to pursue them.
Could you describe the whole FWF ESPRIT application process?
I have first heard about the grant from my mentor here, Gramoz Goranci. I suppose for most applicants the first task is to select the university and mentor they want to work with. In my case I was set on the University of Vienna and Gramoz from the start. Majority of the work was spent on producing the research proposal. Producing the rest of the materials was relatively straightforward. Even before starting writing the proposal I have spent some time organizing my ideas and considering if I have a coherent line of proposed work which could make an appealing proposal. After submission there were some bureaucratic details to be handled, and a wait period of around 4 months. Once I was given the approval some further bureaucratic details had to be handled, but overall the people at the FWF were extremely accommodating. The actual decision is made by the FWF based on independent reviews by international researchers, which were made available to read afterwards.
What do you believe contributed most to your success in securing this grant?
I suspect that at the end of the day the most important thing (assuming one produces a polished research proposal) is proving that the applicant has a strong background for the proposed problems. This of course mainly relies on publication record and awards. I do think that I have managed to hit a thin line between being ambitious enough but not too ambitious with the problems proposed (which I likely couldn’t have without the advice of Gramoz). I did ultimately end up working months on the actual proposal and spent even more planning. I suppose reviewers can infer this from the materials submitted.
Thinking about your daily work, what tasks do you enjoy the most, and which ones less so?
Without a doubt the actual thinking, doing research and reading materials are the main reason I like doing this, as I suppose are for most. I do help with one of the courses for the department (although my contribution is minimal, I feel), I don’t mind doing this, it almost serves as a break between reading heavy materials. Also, without a doubt the publication process itself is the worst part of the job, both the writing and presenting I am not a huge fan of, it just makes me feel like I am not doing research.
What was the most personally significant insight or realization you have gained so far during your time as a researcher?
I suppose here I should put something non-technical. I would say that what was the most surprising to me at first is the general optimism most researchers have towards solving problems. By this, I mean when I first began reading papers I doubted I would ever produce works of similar complexity or solve actual open problems other researchers more experienced than me had attempted before. But then I have noticed that the more senior researchers I have worked with are not concerned by this: they are happy to spend some time on a problem even if they are starting off from a simple near trivial observation. Almost shockingly (to me), multiple times such an observation was all it takes (apart from technical work which is really just a question of time).
