An Interview with Raghu Meka , Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, the 2025 IEEE CS 2025 W. Wallace McDowell Award Recipient, who isa leading researcher in theoretical computer science whose work spans complexity theory, pseudorandomness, learning theory, and combinatorics—advancing the mathematical foundations that underpin modern algorithms and machine learning. We connected with Prof.Meka to explore his impactful journey.
Your research in complexity theory and learning theory has garnered significant attention. What drives your interest in these foundational areas of computer science?
I’m drawn to theoretical computer science because it hits a rare sweet spot: clean, foundational questions that also connect to—and often pioneer—real systems. Take communication complexity: asking how little communication is needed to complete a task seems simple, but it opens deep links to analysis, combinatorics, number theory, algorithms, and information theory. That blend of elegance and impact is what keeps me hooked.
You’ve made notable contributions to additive combinatorics. How do these mathematical insights translate to practical applications in computer science?
While the exact results we obtained in additive combinatorics do not yet translate to practical applications, I strongly believe that the fundamental insights will eventually lead to deciphering fundamental algorithmic questions of practical importance. For instance, there is hope that the insights we developed in the context of additive combinatorics will lead to faster algorithms for finding cliques in hypergraphs, an algorithmic problem that has not seen any progress for several decades.
Receiving the 2025 W. Wallace McDowell Award is a testament to your impactful work. How do such recognitions influence your future research directions?
In an ideal world, awards should inspire you but not fundamentally change what you work on. That said, an honor like the McDowell Award does give me added confidence to dig deeper into the directions recognized here—and it helps me justify investing more time and energy, not just my own but also from students and collaborators, in the long-horizon problems we care about.
How do you balance deep theoretical work with the need for tangible applications in today’s technology-driven world?
That’s a significant challenge in any area of research. My philosophy is that it’s good to be guided by the need for tangible applications, but this shouldn’t dictate the choice of problems. Personally, I’m more driven by curiosity and the potential for elegance. Fortunately, in a field like theoretical computer science, many important problems are directly connected to applications. For work that isn’t immediately connected, history shows that if a concept is elegant and addresses a foundational issue, it will, more often than not, have an impact in the long run. I am confident in that pattern.
Your academic journey includes time at the Institute for Advanced Study and Microsoft Research. How have these experiences shaped your research philosophy?
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