DYLAN MCKAY
  • Academia
    • Teaching
    • Publications
    • Great Videos For Young CS and Math Students
    • Fun Open Problems
    • Résumé
Picture
​Dylan McKay
Visiting Professor at Oberlin College
Oberlin email: dmckay




Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
​Stanford University
​Georgia Institute of Technology 
Georgia institute of Technology
Budapest Semesters in Mathematics
UCLA Logic Center Summer School in Logic
PhD in Computer Science
MSc in Computer Science
​BSc in Computer Science

​BSc in Discrete Mathematics
2017-2020
​2015-2016
2011-2015
​2011-2015
Spring 2014
Summer 2014

Teaching

Teaching Assistant
6.045
Spring 2019

​Teaching Assistant

6.045
Spring 2019

​Teaching Assistant
6.042
Fall 2018

Teaching Assistant
6.841
Fall 2017

​Instructor
CS 103
Summer 2016
​
Instructor
CS 3510
Summer 2015

Teaching Assistant
CS 4510 
Spring 2015

​Teaching Assistant
CS 6520 
Fall 2014

​Teaching Assistant
​MATH 2602
Fall 2014

Teaching Assistant
MATH 2602
Fall 2014

Teaching Assistant
CS 2050
Fall 2013

Teaching Assistant
CS 3510
Summer 2013

Grader
MATH 3012
Summer 2013

Grader
MATH 3012
Summer 2013

Teaching Assistant
CS 2051
Spring 2013

Teaching Assistant
MATH 2602
Fall 2012

​Teaching Assistant
CS 2050
​Spring 2012
Under Ryan Williams
Automata, Computability, and Complexity Theory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

​​Under Ryan Williams

Automata, Computability, and Complexity Theory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Under F. Thomson Leighton, Ankur Moitra, and Debayan Gupta
Mathematics for Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Under Ryan Williams
Advanced Complexity Theory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
​
​
​
​Mathematical Foundations of Computing
Stanford University

Under advisement of H. Venkateswaran
Design and Analysis of Algorithms
Georgia institute of Technology

Under H. Venkateswaran
Automata and Complexity
Georgia institute of Technology

​Under Richard Lipton
​Complexity Theory
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Sal Barone
​Linear and Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Shane Scott
Linear and Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Monica Sweat
Introduction to Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under H. Venkateswaran
Design and Analysis of Algorithms
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Ruidong Wang
Applied Combinatorics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Jing Hu
Applied Combinatorics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Dana Randall
Honors Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Alan Diaz
Linear and Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Under Monica Sweat
Introduction to Discrete Mathematics
Georgia institute of Technology

Publications

2019

"Relations and Equivalences Between Circuit Lower Bounds and Karp-Lipton Theorems" with Lijie Chen, Cody Murray, and Ryan Williams. To appear in CCC 2019 (link coming soon)

"Weak Lower Bounds on Resource-Bounded Compression Imply Strong Separations of Complexity Classes" with Cody Murray and Ryan Williams. To appear in STOC 2019 (link coming soon)

"Quadratic Time-Space Lower Bounds for Computing Natural Functions With a Random Oracle" with Ryan Williams, ITCS 2019. (link coming soon)

2017

"Theoretical Foundations of Team Matchmaking" with Josh Alman, AAMAS 2017. 

Fun Open Problems

."Mathematical Bugs" - problems which are easy to understand and seem very easy but are still open and are probably extremely difficult to resolve. [Disclaimer: my aim in putting these problems here is not to encourage anyone to work on these problems for a significant amount of time.]

Is there an algorithm which decides if the output of a circuit over subsets of the natural numbers outputs the empty set? Reference.

Is there a binary operation over the non-negative reals which satisfies the metric axioms and the group axioms? (Disclaimer: I don't know if this problem is actually open) Reference.

Is it true that for every finite union-closed family of sets, there is some x such that x is in at least half of the sets (in the family)? This is the Frankl Conjecture. Reference.

Given a list of integers x_1, x_2, x_3,..., x_n, and an integer k, how quickly can we decide if sqrt(x_1)+sqrt(x_2)+...+sqrt(x_n) < k? There is no known proof that this can be done in polynomial time... Reference.

Selected Outreach

As an undergrad, I started an organization at Georgia Tech called Big O to bring together undergraduates interested in CS Theory and Math. I still give talks there when I visit. I also regularly participate in ESP at Stanford and MIT because I like teaching cool things to high school and middle school students, too!

If you are looking for volunteers for things similar to what I described, please feel free to let me know!

Past SPLASH/SPARK classes through ESP:
  • 2015 Fall Stanford:
    • "That's so Random!" with Josh Alman and Michael Kim.
  • 2016 Spring Stanford:
    • "That's so Random!" with Josh Alman and Michael Kim.
    • "The Mathematics of Games" with Josh Alman and Michael Kim.
  • 2017 Spring MIT:
    • "Compass and Straightedge Constructions" with Josh Alman.

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  • Academia
    • Teaching
    • Publications
    • Great Videos For Young CS and Math Students
    • Fun Open Problems
    • Résumé