Alex Steiger

About me: I am an Assistant Research Professor at Duke University in the Department of Computer Science, focusing on teaching our core undergraduate courses. In my research, I have broad interests in theoretical computer science and algorithms, and am particularly interested in computational geometry and its applications. Recent projects focus on efficient algorithms for optimal multi-robot motion planning. Email: asteiger AT cs DOT duke DOT edu Office: D312 LSRC

Teaching

• COMPSCI 101: Introduction to Computer Science ( Fall 2025, current )
• COMPSCI 201: Data Structures and Algorithms ( Spring 2026, Spring 2024 )
• COMPSCI 230: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science ( Spring 2025 )
• COMPSCI 290: Computational Geometry ( Fall 2024 )
• COMPSCI 330: Introduction to Design and Analysis of Algorithms ( Spring 2026, Summer 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 )
• COMPSCI 531D: Introduction to Algorithms ( Fall 2023, Fall 2021 )

Publications

• Near-Optimal Min-Sum Multi-Robot Motion Planning in a Planar Rectilinear Environment. [preprint]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal and Benjamin Holmgren. To appear at SODA 2026.
  
  
• Optimal Motion Planning for Two Square Robots in a Rectilinear Environment. [online]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal, Mark de Berg, Benjamin Holmgren, and Martijn Struijs
  Proceedings of the 41st Symposium on Computational Geometry (SOCG), 2025.
  
  
• Near-Optimal Min-Sum Motion Planning for Two Square Robots in a Polygonal Environment. [online]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal, Dan Halperin, and Micha Sharir.
  Proceedings of the 35th ACM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA), 2024.
  
  
• An Output-Sensitive Algorithm for Computing the Union of Cubes and Fat Boxes in 3D. [online]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal.
  Proceedings of the 48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP), 2021.
  
  
• Decomposing the Complement of the Union of Cubes in Three Dimensions. [online]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal and Micha Sharir.
  Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA), 2021.
  
  
• Efficient Indexes for Diverse Top-k Range Queries. [online]
  With Pankaj K. Agarwal and Stavros Sintos.
  Proceedings of the 39th ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS), 2020.
  
  
• Single-face non-crossing shortest paths in planar graphs. [online]
  Master's thesis, advised by Jeff Erickson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017.
  

TA Experience

• COMPSCI 230: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science (Spring 2019)
• COMPSCI 330: Design and Analysis of Algorithms (Fall 2017)
• CS 473: Algorithms (Spring 2017)
• CS 374: Algorithms and Models of Computation ( (Fall 2016), (Spring 2016), (Fall 2015) )

Education

• PhD in Computer Science from Duke University, 2023
• MS in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017
• BS in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015
• AS from College of Lake County, 2013