Xiao Mao

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University advised by Professor Aviad Rubinstein. Previously, I received an M.Eng degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Computer Science and Mathematics at MIT. My M.Eng thesis was supervised by Prof. Virginia Vassilevska Williams.

My research interest is in theoretical computer science in general. (CV)

Email: xiaomao at stanford dot edu.

Selected Publications

All authors are listed in lexicographic order.

Conference Papers

Breaking the Sorting Barrier for Directed Single-Source Shortest Paths

Ran Duan, Jiayi Mao, Xiao Mao, Xinkai Shu, Longhui Yin

ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2025). Best Paper Award. Invited to the Journal of the ACM

[arXiv]

Fully-Dynamic All-Pairs Shortest Paths: Likely Optimal Worst-Case Update Time

Xiao Mao

ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2024)

[arXiv]

(1−ε)-Approximation of Knapsack in Nearly Quadratic Time

Xiao Mao

ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2024)

[arXiv]

Approximating Knapsack and Partition via Dense Subset Sums

Mingyang Deng, Ce Jin, Xiao Mao

ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2023)

[arXiv]

On Problems Related to Unbounded SubsetSum: A Unified Combinatorial Approach

Mingyang Deng, Xiao Mao, Ziqian Zhong

ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2023)

[arXiv]

Breaking the Cubic Barrier for (Unweighted) Tree Edit Distance

Xiao Mao

IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2021). Machtey Award for Best Student Paper, sole winner. Invited to the SICOMP Special Issue for FOCS 2021

[SIAM Journal Version] [arXiv]

Miscellaneous

Competitive programming: Competitive Programming Hall Of Fame