PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Karthik Sridharan

Karthik Sridharan is a Cornell computer scientist who builds the mathematical theory behind machine learning, with online learning and optimization at the center of his work. He earned a PhD at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago in 2012, advised by Nathan Srebro. COLT gave best paper awards to his 2010 paper with Shai Shalev-Shwartz and Ohad Shamir, and to his 2011 paper with Alexander Rakhlin and Ambuj Tewari. After a postdoctoral position at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he joined Cornell's computer science faculty in 2014 and was named a Sloan Research Fellow in 2018. He is an associate professor of computer science at Cornell and a field member in statistics.

Timeline

  1. 2010–2011

    Two COLT best papers

    In 2010, he shares the COLT best paper award with Shai Shalev-Shwartz and Ohad Shamir for Learning Kernel-Based Halfspaces with the Zero-One Loss. The COLT 2011 best paper award goes to Online Learning: Beyond Regret, which he writes with Alexander Rakhlin and Ambuj Tewari.

  2. 2011

    Better mini-batch algorithms

    With Andrew Cotter, Ohad Shamir and Nathan Srebro, he writes Better Mini-Batch Algorithms via Accelerated Gradient Methods for NIPS 2011. The paper studies how accelerated gradient methods can improve the mini-batch algorithms used to speed up stochastic convex optimization.

  3. 2012

    A PhD at TTIC

    After a B.E. at the Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore and a master's degree at Buffalo, he earns a PhD at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago in 2012. Nathan Srebro is his thesis advisor, and the thesis focuses on online machine learning.

  4. 2012–2014

    Wharton postdoc, then Cornell

    From 2012, he is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, working jointly with Alexander Rakhlin and Michael Kearns. In the fall of 2014, he joins Cornell's Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor.

  5. 2017

    Simons Institute research fellow

    He is a research fellow in spring 2017 in the Foundations of Machine Learning program at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

  6. 2018

    A Sloan Research Fellowship

    In February 2018, he is named a 2018 Sloan Research Fellow, while an assistant professor at Cornell focused on theoretical machine learning.

  7. 2019–2022

    Best paper at ALT 2019

    Two-Player Games for Efficient Non-Convex Constrained Optimization, written with Andrew Cotter and Heinrich Jiang, wins the best paper award at ALT 2019. In 2022, he coauthors On the Complexity of Adversarial Decision Making with Dylan Foster, Alexander Rakhlin and Ayush Sekhari, a full oral at NeurIPS. Foster, Sekhari and Chuan Guo are among his past students at Cornell.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at Cornell

    He is an associate professor of computer science at Cornell and a field member in statistics, working on statistical learning theory, online learning, optimization, empirical process theory, concentration inequalities and game theory. His seat on Cornell's Faculty Senate runs for 2026–2029.

Career

  1. Since 2014Cornell UniversityAssistant Professor, Member
  2. 2017Simons Institute for the Theory of ComputingResearch Fellow
  3. 2012–2014University of PennsylvaniaPostdoctoral Research Associate

Education

  1. 2012Toyota Technological Institute at ChicagoPhD
  2. Ramaiah Institute of TechnologyB.E.
  3. University at Buffalo, State University of New YorkMaster's degree

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Karthik Sridharan. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Cornell University. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  3. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Cornell University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Cornell University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Karthik Sridharan yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. COLT 2010, the 23rd International Conference on Learning Theory learningtheory.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Research cs.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Better Mini-Batch Algorithms via Accelerated Gradient Methods papers.nips.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. TTIC Karthik Sridharan - Alumni Highlight ttic.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Karthik Sridharan | Department of Computer Science | Cornell Bowers cs.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. TTIC News ttic.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Karthik Sridharan simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Karthik Sridharan cs.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Current Senators - Office of the Dean of Faculty deanoffaculty.cornell.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.