Hi! I’m a 5th year PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where I’m fortunate to be advised by Chandra Chekuri. My research is in theoretical computer science; more specifically, I’m interested in approximation algorithms and network design.

Before joining UIUC, I received my B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, where I was advised by Anupam Gupta on my senior thesis.

I am currently on the postdoc job market!

Contact info:

Email: rheaj3 at illinois dot edu

My Papers

A Polylogarithmic Approximation for Buy-at-Bulk Network Design with Protection

with Chandra Chekuri
to appear in STOC 2026

Node-Weighted Multicut in Planar Digraphs [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri

Streaming Algorithms for Network Design [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri, Sepideh Mahabadi, Ali Vakilian
APPROX 2025

A Polylogarithmic Approximation for Directed Steiner Forest in Planar Digraphs [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri
SODA 2025

From Directed Steiner Tree to Directed Polymatroid Steiner Tree in Planar Graphs [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri, Shubhang Kulkarni, Da Wei Zheng, Weihao Zhu
ESA 2024

Approximation Algorithms for Hop Constrained and Buy-at-Bulk Network Design via Hop Constrained Oblivious Routing [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri
ESA 2024

Exponential Time Approximation for Coloring 3-Colorable Graphs [arXiv]

with Venkatesan Guruswami

Approximation Algorithms for Network Design in Non-Uniform Fault Models [arXiv]

with Chandra Chekuri
Mathematical Programming Series A, Oct 2025. Initial version at ICALP 2023, which combined results from two earlier manuscripts:

• Augmentation based Approximation Algorithms for Flexible Network Design
• Approximating Flexible Graph Connectivity via Räcke Tree based Rounding

Improving Greedy Algorithms for the Steiner Forest Problem

advised by Anupam Gupta
Undergraduate Senior Thesis