Yusuf Hakan Kalaycı

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the IDEAL Institute · Chicago, Illinois

prof_pic.jpg

I am currently an IDEAL Postdoctoral Research Fellow hosted by Prof. Lev Reyzin and Prof. Ian Kash at UIC, and by Prof. Avrim Blum at TTIC.

My research focuses on theory of optimal stopping, combinatorial optimization, and computational social choice, with applications to inference-time optimization for accurate, aligned, and efficient large language models.

Previously, I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, where I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Shaddin Dughmi and Prof. David Kempe. Before that, I earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering and Mathematics from Boğaziçi University, where I worked with Prof. Ümit Işlak and Prof. Mohan Ravichandran.

You can reach me at yhkalayci@gmail.com or kalayci@uic.edu.

Publications

Preprints

  1. Asymmetric Maximal Lotteries and a Connection to the Caccetta–Häggkvist Conjecture through the Metric Distortion Framework
    Fatih Erdem Kizilkaya, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, Evi Micha, and David Kempe
    In submission , 2026
  2. Batched Pandora’s Box
    Shaddin Dughmi, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, Vasilis Livanos, and Aditya Prasad
    2026
    arXiv
  3. Adaptive Generate-Rank-Verify: Inference-Time Search with Costly Verification
    Shaddin Dughmi, Mahdi Haghifam, and Yusuf Hakan Kalayci
    2026
    arXiv
  4. Understanding Human Perception of Representation in Citizens’ Assemblies: An Empirical Study
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, Vasilis Varsamis, Nick Gill, and Evi Micha
    In submission , 2026
  5. LYNX: Learning Dynamic Exits for Confidence-Controlled Reasoning
    Ömer Faruk Akgül, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, Rajgopal Kannan, Willie Neiswanger, and Viktor Prasanna
    2026
    HTML
  6. Optimal Stopping vs Best-of-N for Inference Time Optimization
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, Vinod Raman, and Shaddin Dughmi
    2026
    HTML

2026

  1. Relationships and Connections between Definitions of Metric Proportional Representation
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci and David Kempe
    In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (to appear), 2026
    HTML
  2. Temporal Panel Selection in Ongoing Citizens’ Assemblies
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci and Evi Micha
    In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (to appear), 2026
    HTML PDF
  3. Near-Optimal Sparsifiers for Stochastic Knapsack and Assignment Problems
    Shaddin Dughmi, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, and Xinyu Liu
    In Proceedings of the 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference, 2026
    HTML

2025

  1. Full Proportional Justified Representation
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, David Kempe, and Jiasen Liu
    In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2025
    HTML
  2. Is Transductive Learning Equivalent to PAC Learning?
    Shaddin Dughmi, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, and Grayson York
    In Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory, 2025
    HTML

2024

  1. Limitations of Stochastic Selection Problems with Pairwise Independent Priors
    Shaddin Dughmi, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, and Neel Patel
    In Proceedings of the 56th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2024
    HTML
  2. Proportional Representation in Metric Spaces and Low-Distortion Committee Selection
    Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, David Kempe, and Vikram Kher
    In Proceedings of the 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2024
    HTML

2023

  1. On Sparsification of Stochastic Packing Problems
    Shaddin Dughmi, Yusuf Hakan Kalayci, and Neel Patel
    In Proceedings of the 50th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming, 2023
    HTML

Teaching

  • CSCI 670: Advanced Analysis of Algorithms, taught by David Kempe, University of Southern California, Spring 2025.
  • Training of the Turkish National Olympiad Team in Informatics, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), 2022–present.
  • Training of USC ACM-ICPC teams, University of Southern California, 2023–2024.
  • CSCI 670: Advanced Analysis of Algorithms, taught by David Kempe, University of Southern California, Fall 2022.
  • CSCI 670: Advanced Analysis of Algorithms, taught by Shang-Hua Teng, University of Southern California, Fall 2021.
  • Algorithmic Competition Summer Camp, inzva, Summer 2018.

Professional Service

  • Program Committee Member: AAAI (2026, 2027) and EC (2026).
  • Conference Reviewer: ICML (2026).
  • Subreviewer: SODA (2027), ESA (2025), STOC (2023, 2024), and IPCO (2023).