Professor
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University of Southern California

Contact Information

Office: GCS 502L
Office phone: (213)-740-6438 (but e-mail is usually better)
e-mail:

Note: Please do not e-mail my USC e-mail address. USC's administration has decided to make USC e-mail practically unusable as professional e-mail, and has also disabled automatic e-mail forwarding. I will check my USC e-mail at best sproadically.

Research Interests

Algorithms and theoretical computer science, specifically applications to networks, auctions and mechanisms design, online learning and feature selection, randomized algorithms, and information flow through networks. My publications can be found on the publications page.

Research currently supported by ARO MURI grant W911NF1810208. Prior support through NSF CAREER grant 0545855, NSF grant CCF-1423618, NSF grant DDDAS-TMRP 0540420, NSF Grant 1619458, a Sloan Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Grant, and an Okawa Foundation Fellowship.

Conference Organization

Theory Group

We have an active CS Theory Group. Check the group page for regular meeting times, talks, etc. We have two mailing lists for theory-group related activities:

  • http://groups.google.com/group/USC-Theory-Group is the mailing list for people already in the group, i.e., faculty and students who are already actively engaged in CS theory work, or who have been attending group events for a while. Subscription is by approval only (leave a note on who you are with your application), and every subscriber can post to that list.
  • http://groups.google.com/group/USC-Theory is a mailing list for others who are interested in finding out about group events (e.g., USC students not (yet) engaged in theory research, or people outside USC. This mailing list receives announcements for talks and other events of broader interest (but not internal discussions). Subscription does not require approval, and there is only a small number of trusted people who can post to this list, so you won't be spammed.