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Pranav Dandekar
ppd#$*@@#!stanford...edu
Research Interests
Economic and algorithmic aspects of online networks and markets.
Education
 Stanford University, Stanford CA (Sept 2008-present)
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Ph.D. program, Management Science & Engineering.
Advisor: Prof. Ashish Goel.
Relevant Courses: Microeconomics II (ECON), Algorithmic Game Theory (CS), Randomized Algorithms (CS), Optimization (MS&E), Convex
Optimization (EE), Topics in Stochastic Optimization (MS&E), Stochastic Systems (MS&E), Network Analysis (CS), Social Network Analysis (SOC), Information Networks (MS&E), Social and Economic Networks (ECON).
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University of Florida, Gainesville FL (Jan 2003-Dec 2004)
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Master of Science, Computer Engineering. GPA: 4.0/4.0
Relevant Courses: Algorithms, Sparse Matrix Algorithms, Advanced Data Structures, Advanced Operating Systems,
Computer Architecture, Programming Language Principles, Bioinformatics.
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S. G. S. Institute of Technology & Science, Indore, India (Sept 1998-Aug 2002)
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(affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi Technical University, MP, India)
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Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Engineering. GPA: 80.1% (Rank 2/61)
Graduated in the first division with distinction.
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Distance Education Program, IIT Bombay, India (Mar-May 2002)
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Remotely attended a graduate course on Modern Information Systems.
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Experience
Summer Intern, Technicolor Research Center, Palo Alto CA (Summer 2011)
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Research on privacy, monetization and markets for private data.
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Summer Intern, Google Research, Mountain View CA (Summer 2009)
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Worked on algorithms for identity clustering on social identity graphs. Prototyped algorithms using MapReduce that scaled to graphs with 100+ million nodes and edges.
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Amazon.com, Seattle WA (Summer 2004, Feb 2005-Sept 2008)
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- Software Development Engineer, Reputation, July 2007-Sept 2008
- Designed new algorithms, rebuilt Amazon's Community Reputation service which evaluates the quality of community created
content on Amazon - reviews, tags, lists, discussion posts, etc. - based on community votes and assigns reputation to content creators (e.g. the "Top Reviewer Ladder").
- Software Development Engineer, Search Traffic, Feb 2005-July 2007
- Re-architected Amazon's URL space worldwide to create a cleaner URL structure and add relevant keywords to
URLs. Worked as the lead engineer and project manager. Project resulted in $100MM in incremental revenue.
- Built innovative personalization features to improve discovery for customers landing on Amazon from search engines.
- Actively involved in recruiting. Interviewed 150+ candidates for
technical and management positions at campus and industry recruiting events, as well as in-house.
- Participated in usability tests (both as observer and as subject), and in design reviews of website features.
- SDE Intern, ECommerce Platform QA Group, Summer 2004
Extended an open-source collaborative testing and documentation tool (Fitnesse) to suit Amazon's QA processes.
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Research Assistant, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India (Sept-Dec 2002)
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Conducted performance benchmarking of a large database system using the TPC-H benchmarking suite.
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Summer Intern, Persistent Systems, Pune, India (Summer 2001)
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Built a web-based periodic employee appraisal tool as part of a three-member team.
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Publications/Technical Writings
- P. Dandekar, A. Goel, D. Lee. Biased Assimilation, Homophily, and the Dynamics of Polarization. Proc. National Academy of Sciences, 110 (15), 5791-5796, April 9, 2013.
A preliminary version presented at WINE '12.
- P. Dandekar, N. Fawaz, S. Ioannidis. Privacy Auctions for Recommender Systems. WINE '12.
- P. Dandekar, K. Hosanagar. Landing Page Selection for Online Advertising: The Network Matters. WISE '12 (Poster).
- P. Dandekar, A. Goel, M. P. Wellman, B. Wiedenbeck. Strategic Formation of Credit Networks. WWW '12.
A preliminary version presented at TADA '11.
- P. Dandekar, A. Goel, R. Govindan, I. Post. Liquidity in Credit Networks: A Little Trust Goes a Long Way. EC '11.
A preliminary version presented at NetEcon '10.
- P. Dandekar. Algebraic-geometric Methods for Complexity Lower Bounds. Master's Thesis (advised by Prof. Meera Sitharam), University of Florida, 2004.
- A. Pol, P. Dandekar. Highly Scalable And Accurate Structure For BLAST Seeds. University of Florida, 2004. Work extended and published in BIBE '05.
- A. K. Ganguly, P. Dandekar. On the Effect of Shocks on a Protective System having two Main Units and one Protective Unit. 25th National Systems Conference, Coimbatore, India, 2001.
Patents
Academic Honors
- Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges award winner, 2010.
- School of Engineering Fellowship, Stanford University, 2008-09.
- Certificate of Achievement for maintaining a 4.0 GPA by the International Student Center, University of Florida, Apr 2004.
- Best Senior Project, Department of Computer Engineering, SGSITS Indore, 2001-02.
- All-India rank 34 (99.36 percentile) in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) in Computer Science for admission to the graduate programs in IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, 2001.
- Twice ranked in the IIT Joint Entrance Exam (1998 and 1999); declined admission offers.
Teaching Experience
Teaching Assistant, Stanford University
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MS&E 239 (Computational Advertising), Autumn 2009, Autumn 2010: Graduate class taught by Andrei Broder and Vanja Josifovski from Yahoo!. I held office hours, helped design a major advertising project and graded assignments.
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Teaching Assistant, University of Florida
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- CGS 3063 (Computers & Modern Society), Spring 2003, Fall 2003, Spring 2004.
- COP 3530 (Undergraduate Data Structures & Algorithms), Summer 2003.
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Service
- Organizer of the RAIN Seminar at Stanford, 2012-13.
- Coordinator for the OR PhD Admit Day at Stanford, April 2012.
- Reviewer for SODA '13, STOC '12, KDD '09, and Algorithmica.
- Co-organizer of the Stanford Operations Research Seminar, 2009-2011.
- PC member for the Demo track at WWW '10.
- Co-organizer for EC '09, WINE '10.
Extra-curricular Achievements
- Member of the Stanford table-tennis team.
- A check for 0x$2.00 from Don Knuth.
- Member of the University of Florida team at the ACM Programming Contest, 2003.
- First prize, Circuit Design Contest at TRYST, a national technical festival organized by IIT Delhi, 2001.
- Led the University Chess team at the All India Inter-University Chess Tournament, 2000. Led the College Chess team all four years of undergraduate study.
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