Ashish Goel

Ashish Goel was born in Uttar Pradesh in India. He did his schooling at Uttar Pradesh including at St. Peter's, Agra. He was ranked first in IIT JEE 1990.{{Cite web|url=https://dev.studentgiri.com/last-38-years-iit-jee-toppers/|title=Last 38 Years IIT JEE Toppers|date=April 27, 2016|website=Studentigiri}}{{Cite web|url=https://openthemagazine.com/features/india/where-are-they-now/|title=Where are They Now?|date=July 16, 2009}} He graduated with a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur in 1994. He then went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1999.

Ashish Goel's research has spanned algorithmic problems in several areas of computer science and computational social science including computer networks, theoretical computer science, molecular self-assembly, algorithmic game theory, and computational social choice.

Ashish Goel's early work resolved several open algorithmic problems in graph theory and computer networks including showing that the scheduling protocol FIFO can result in instability at arbitrarily low rates in a packet network;{{Cite journal|url=https://epubs.siam.org/doi/10.1137/S0097539703426805|title=Instability of FIFO at Arbitrarily Low Rates in the Adversarial Queueing Model|first1=Rajat|last1=Bhattacharjee|first2=Ashish|last2=Goel|first3=Zvi|last3=Lotker|date=January 1, 2005|journal=SIAM Journal on Computing|volume=34|issue=2|pages=318–332|via=epubs.siam.org (Atypon)|doi=10.1137/S0097539703426805|url-access=subscription}} showing that matching in regular bipartite graphs can be computed in time nearly linear in the number of vertices (i.e. without looking at all the edges);{{Cite journal|url=https://epubs.siam.org/doi/10.1137/100812513|title=Perfect Matchings in $O(n\log n)$ Time in Regular Bipartite Graphs|first1=Ashish|last1=Goel|first2=Michael|last2=Kapralov|first3=Sanjeev|last3=Khanna|date=January 1, 2013|journal=SIAM Journal on Computing|volume=42|issue=3|pages=1392–1404|via=epubs.siam.org (Atypon)|doi=10.1137/100812513|arxiv=0909.3346}} showing that every monotone graph property has a sharp threshold in geometric random graphs;{{Cite journal|url=https://projecteuclid.org/journals/annals-of-applied-probability/volume-15/issue-4/Monotone-properties-of-random-geometric-graphs-have-sharp-thresholds/10.1214/105051605000000575.full|title=Monotone properties of random geometric graphs have sharp thresholds|first1=Ashish|last1=Goel|first2=Sanatan|last2=Rai|first3=Bhaskar|last3=Krishnamachari|date=November 30, 2005|journal=The Annals of Applied Probability|volume=15|issue=4|pages=2535–2552|via=Project Euclid|doi=10.1214/105051605000000575|arxiv=math/0310232}} and showing that in a packet switch, output queuing (the gold standard) can be simulated using a fabric that is twice as fast as an input-queued switch.{{Cite web|url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/751673|title=Matching output queueing with a combined input output queued switch|first1=Shang-Tse|last1=Chuang|first2=A.|last2=Goel|first3=N.|last3=McKeown|first4=B.|last4=Prabhakar|date=March 31, 1999|volume=3|pages=1169–1178 vol.3|via=IEEE Xplore|doi=10.1109/INFCOM.1999.751673}}

Goel along with Rajeev Motwani and Gagan Aggarwal gave the first comprehensive analysis of how the auction used by Google to price search keywords can be made truthful.{{Cite web|url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1134707.1134708|title=Truthful auctions for pricing search keywords|first1=Gagan|last1=Aggarwal|first2=Ashish|last2=Goel|first3=Rajeev|last3=Motwani|date=June 11, 2006|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|pages=1–7|via=ACM Digital Library|doi=10.1145/1134707.1134708}} This work was co-awarded the ACM SigECOMM test of time award in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sigecom.org/award-tot.html|title=ACM SIGecom: Test of Time Award|website=www.sigecom.org}} Another paper in computational advertising received the best paper award at The Web Conference 2009.{{Cite web|url=https://thewebconf.org/www2009/best.html|title=www 2009 Madrid|website=thewebconf.org}} Goel was named as an ACM Fellow, in the 2024 class of fellows, "for contributions to algorithms for social networks, market design, and civic platforms, bridging theory and real-world impact".{{cite web|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2025/january/fellows-2024|title= 2024 ACM Fellows Honored for Contributions to Computing That Are Transforming Science and Society|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|date=January 22, 2025|access-date=2025-01-22}}

Goel has had made contributions to algorithms and software related to personalization, online advertising and decentralized finance, and has been associated with companies such as Twitter, Stripe, Coinbase,{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} and Infosys{{Cite web|url=https://www.livemint.com/Companies/1meHMf8h53feNcbcG67CrO/Infosys-to-tieup-with-online-education-firms.html|title=Infosys to tie-up with online education firms|first=Varun|last=Sood|date=May 18, 2016|website=mint}}{{Cite web|url=http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/infosys-ropes-in-former-twitter-executive-ashish-goel-as-scientific-adviser/46940898|title=Infosys ropes in former Twitter executive Ashish Goel as scientific adviser - ET Telecom|website=ETTelecom.com}} as an advisor/consultant.

From 2009 to 2010, he worked for Twitter when the company was small. He designed all of Twitter's early personalization products and was credited by ex-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo for designing its monetization model.{{Cite web |date=March 1, 2012 |title=Twitter, the Startup That Wouldn't Die |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-01/twitter-the-startup-that-wouldnt-die |via=www.bloomberg.com}} His research have also received coverage in mainstream media.{{Cite web|url=https://scitechdaily.com/widely-used-ai-machine-learning-methods-dont-work-as-claimed/|title=Widely Used AI Machine Learning Methods Don’t Work as Claimed|first=University of California-Santa|last=Cruz|date=April 18, 2020|website=SciTechDaily}}{{Cite web|url=https://news.mit.edu/2012/predicting-twitter-trending-topics-1101|title=Predicting what topics will trend on Twitter|website=MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}

Goel's research has focused on building software systems that enable constructive online conversation and collaboration on important, often contentious, socio-political issues.

• Applied Social Choice: Goel's work on the role of confirmation bias in increasing political polarization and the role of recommender systems in exacerbating it is widely cited.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/preaching-to-the-choir|title=Preaching to the choir|website=www.nationalaffairs.com}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130401090714.htm|title=New mathematical model shows how society becomes polarized|website=ScienceDaily}}{{Cite web|url=https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/28/researchers-create-social-network-to-reduce-political-polarization/|title=Researchers create social systems to reduce political polarization|date=April 28, 2013}} In addition to doing theoretical research in social choice, Goel has also translated this research into online platforms.The Stanford Participatory Budgeting Platform has become the de facto platform for participatory budgeting in the US, and has been used over 100 times, including major cities like New York, Boston, Seattle, and Chicago.{{Cite web|url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576542472754782288.html|title=Crowdsourcing Tough Decisions on Deficit Reduction|first=Amir|last=Efrati|website=WSJ}}{{Cite web|url=https://stanfordmag.org/contents/deliberation-nation|title=Deliberation Nation|first=STANFORD|last=magazine|date=March 4, 2022|website=stanfordmag.org}}

• Censorship vs Free Speech: Working with colleagues including the political scientist Frank Fukuyama, Goel came up with an architecture that could allow social networks such as Facebook to outsource their editorial decisions on censorship to a third party, called a "middleware". Their paper appeared in Foreign Affairs, a political science magazine,{{Cite web|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-11-24/fukuyama-how-save-democracy-technology|title=How to Save Democracy From Technology|first1=Francis|last1=Fukuyama|first2=Barak|last2=Richman|first3=Ashish|last3=Goel|date=January 26, 2021|via=www.foreignaffairs.com}} and led to discussion in the popular press.{{Cite web|url=https://www.demdigest.org/how-to-save-democracy-from-technology/|title=How to save democracy from technology|date=November 24, 2020}}https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/what-we-must-regulate-when-we-regulate-social-media-platforms-11612109656267.html{{Cite web|url=https://stanforddaily.com/2021/11/10/want-to-limit-digital-platform-power-use-middleware-stanford-professors-say/|title=Want to limit digital platform power? Use middleware, Stanford professors say|date=November 10, 2021}}

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