Rieken Luo

PhD Student, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)

Am Campus 1, 3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria · rluo@ist.ac.at

I am doing my PhD in Austria (2023–present), advised by Prof. Krishnendu Chatterjee. In the summer of 2026, I worked as a research intern at Microsoft Research Cambridge.

Research

My research focuses on the intersection of optimization, games, and machine learning. Specifically, I have been working on:

1. Sequential decision-making complexity and algorithms

AAAI'25 (Oral) [4]

Linear Equations with Min and Max Operators: Computational Complexity

with Krishnendu Chatterjee, Raimundo Saona, Jakub Svoboda

[slides] [paper]
NeurIPS'26 [8]

Algorithms for Linear Equations with Min and Max Operators under (Absolutely) Halting Condition

with Krishnendu Chatterjee, Raimundo Saona, Jakub Svoboda

[slides] [paper]
Submitted [5]

Improved Algorithmic Analysis for Stochastic Games

with Krishnendu Chatterjee, Raimundo Saona, Jakub Svoboda

Submitted [9]

Algorithms with Smoothed Polynomial-Time Complexity for Deterministic Discounted-sum and Mean-payoff Games

with Ali Asadi, Krishnendu Chatterjee

[paper]

2. Multiplayer games efficient protocols

ICLR'26 [6]

Monotone Near-Zero-Sum Games

with Sebastian U Stich, Krishnendu Chatterjee

[poster] [slides] [paper]
NeurIPS'26 [7]

Efficient Gradient Methods for Distributed Saddle Problems

with Anton Rodomanov, Sebastian Stich

[paper]

3. Distributed consensus optimization communication-efficient algorithms

AISTATS'25 [3]

Revisiting LocalSGD and SCAFFOLD: Improved Rates and Missing Analysis

with Sebastian U Stich, Samuel Horvath, Martin Takac

[poster] [slides] [paper]
OPT'23 [2]

On the Convergence of Local SGD under Third-Order Smoothness and Hessian Similarity

with Ali Zindari, Sebastian U Stich

[paper]
Last modified: September 27, 2026