Isaac Grosof's portrait - A nonbinary person with their head and shoulders visible, wearing a purple top in front of a flowerbed.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where I am mentored by R. Srikant. In fall 2023, I was a postdoc at the Georgia Tech School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, where I was mentored by Siva Theja Maguluri. In the summer of 2023, I defended my PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, where I was advised by Mor Harchol-Balter. Check out my thesis document which provides a guided tour of my PhD research, and is designed to be more approachable than diving into my papers directly.

My name is Izzy Grosof, where Izzy is short for Isaac. I am nonbinary, and I use both they/them and she/her pronouns. Check out my introduction to my nonbinary gender for more info on my gender, my they/she Q&A for more info on my pronouns, or all of my gender-related posts.

In Fall 2024, I will be starting as a professor at Northwestern University, in the Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences department.

I research stochastic queueing theory, with a focus on scheduling and resource allocation, and optimal multiserver policies in particular. If you are a first-year PhD student at Northwestern, a prospective student, or thinking of applying, feel free to reach out to me, I am looking to recruit students.

I’m looking for students with a strong mathematical background, so please emphasize that element of your background if you reach out. A math background can be demonstrated via taking advanced math-heavy classes, class projects, or theoretical research. Backgrounds in math, statistics, theoretical computer science, or operations research are all conducive to my style of research.

I have received the ACM SIGMETRICS 2023 Doctoral Dissertation Award, the INFORMS 2022 George Nicholson Award, the ACM SIGMETRICS 2021 Best Paper Award, the ACM SIGMETRICS 2019 Best Student Paper Award, and the IFIP Performance 2018 Best Student Paper Award. I was the 2023 Tennenbaum Postdoctoral Fellow and a 2023 Siebel Scholar.

Check out my publications, all of which you can download to read.

Check out my potential project ideas, which I’d be interested in advising a student to work on and/or interested in collaborating on.

Check out my blog.

Here’s an archive of my job market materials.

A good way to contact me is via my Mastodon account, @isaacg@mathstodon.xyz.

Here’s some art I made:

Art