Combinatorial Optimization and Approximation Algorithms
(L. C. Lau)

Combinatorial optimization is a classical research area to design efficient algorithms to solve combinatorial problems optimally. Many problems, however, are NP-hard, and thus efficient optimal algorithms are not expected. Approximation algorithms is a relatively new research area to design efficient algorithms to solve NP-hard combinatorial problems approximately with provably good performance guarantees. I am very interested in both areas, and would like to apply techniques from combinatorial optimization to design approximation algorithms. In particular, I have been working on graph connectivity problems, which often related to practical network design problems.