Seminar by Prof. Yanina Shkel: Minimum Entropy Probability Couplings
Seminar: Minimum Entropy Probability Couplings
Speaker: Prof. Yanina Shkel, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Date: 7 July 2026 (Tuesday)
Time: 3:30pm - 4:30pm
Venue: Rm 513, 5/F, William MW Mong Engineering Building, CUHK
Jointly organized by CUHK Department of Information Engineering, CUHK The Institute of Theoretical Computer Science and Communications, and IEEE Information Theory Society Hong Kong Chapter.
Abstract
The minimum entropy probability coupling problem aims to couple m probability mass functions (PMFs) in a way that minimizes the entropy of the joint PMF. This problem has applications in information theory, causal inference, transportation polytopes, randomness generation, and many more related areas. However, the computation of the minimum entropy coupling is known to be NP-hard. In this talk, we describe a number of known lower bounds on the minimum achievable entropy using tools like majorization and information spectrum. We also discuss several approximation algorithms and their optimality gaps.
Biography
Yanina Shkel is an Assistant Professor with École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where she is affiliated with the Information Processing Group in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences. She received the B.S. degree in mathematics and computer science and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Before graduate school, she was a Database Developer with Morningstar Inc. During graduate school, she spent her time with 3M Corporate Research, as an Intern. After completing her PhD in 2014, she was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with Princeton University and University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She joined EPFL as a Scientist in 2019, and as an Assistant Professor in 2023. Her research interests include theoretical aspects of data science: in particular, statistics, cryptography, as well as information, learning, and coding theory. She was a recipient of the 2015 NSF Center for Science of Information (CSoI) Post-Doctoral Fellowship and the 2022 Swiss NSF Starting Grant.
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- The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Hong Kong SAR of China, Hong Kong
- Hong Kong
- Building: William M.W. Mong Engineering Building
- Room Number: ERB 513
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- Co-sponsored by CUHK Department of Information Engineering, CUHK The Institute of Theoretical Computer Science and Communications
Speakers
Prof. Yanina Shkel