Iden Kalemaj is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Boston University, working under the wonderful supervision of Sofya Raskhodnikova, in the fields of Sublinear Algorithms and Differential Privacy.

Iden grew up in Vroë, Albania. Her math teacher and school master, Dafina Brokaj, with a rare sense of humor and wisdom, instilled in Iden the confidence to pursue mathematics.

Iden completed her undergraduate studies in Mathematics at Princeton University, and started to explore her interest in theoretical computer science via her classes in graph theory and complexity theory. In her free time she enjoys climbing in the many Boston gyms and taking dance classes.

Sofya Raskhodnikova is a professor of Computer Science at Boston University. Her office is located in the newly constructed Center for Computing and Data Sciences, colloquially known as the Jenga building. She received all her degrees (S.B., S.M., and Ph.D.) from MIT, and then was a postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science. She was a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Penn State and held visiting positions at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA, Boston University, Harvard University, and at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at Berkeley. Sofya works in the areas of randomized and approximation algorithms. Her main interest is the design and analysis of sublinear-time algorithms for combinatorial problems. She has also made important contributions to data privacy. Sofya has been a faculty member at Sigma Camp, a residential summer science camp for kids, for several years. As far as her hobbies go, recall that she works on privacy.

Nithin Varma is a researcher working in the fields of Sublinear Algorithms and Approximation Algorithms. He got his Ph.D. from the Computer Science Department at Boston University, where he was fortunate to be advised by Sofya Raskhodnikova. After that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Computer Science, University of Haifa, where he was hosted and mentored by Ilan Newman and Noga Ron-Zewi. He was introduced to Theoretical Computer Science during his undergraduate years at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the National Institute of Technology Calicut through the wonderful courses offered by Prof. K Muralikrishnan. In his free time, Nithin enjoys meditation, singing Indian classical music and practicing the Mohiniyattam dance.