Pranav Nuti
I am a Principal Researcher (a postdoctoral-level position) at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, mentored by Rad Niazadeh. I was previously a mathematics PhD student at Stanford University, advised by Jan Vondrak.
pranav.nuti [at] chicagobooth [dot] edu | CV (PDF)
Last updated: March 2026.
About
I work on online decision-making under uncertainty, with a focus on applications to classic problems in operations research. I am especially interested in online matching problems, with current work motivated by housing applications. I am also working on using AI to solve open problems in operations research. Alongside research, I have a strong interest in teaching and mentoring students.
What's New
- Prophet Inequalities with Cancellation Costs is under minor revision at Operations Research.
- I am currently very excited about recent progress on stationary online contention resolution schemes; please feel free to email me if you would like to discuss this line of work.
- Static Pricing for Single Sample Multi-unit Prophet Inequalities accepted at SOSA 2026. This is joint work with my (then undergraduate) mentee, Peter Westbrook.
- Online Matching and Contention Resolution for Edge Arrivals with Vanishing Probabilities is under minor revision at Operations Research.
Papers
Journal Papers
- Prophet Inequalities with Cancellation Costs. With Farbod Ekbatani, Rad Niazadeh, and Jan Vondrak. Operations Research, minor revision. Conference version: STOC 2024.
- Online Matching and Contention Resolution for Edge Arrivals with Vanishing Probabilities. With Will Ma and Calum MacRury. Operations Research, minor revision. Conference version: EC 2024.
- Toward an Optimal Contention Resolution Scheme for Matchings. With Jan Vondrak. Mathematical Programming, 2025. Conference version: IPCO 2023.
- Engaging Activities for Teaching Linear Algebra. With Shintaro Fushida-Hardy and Megan Selbach-Allen. PRIMUS, 2024.
Conference Papers
- Static Pricing for Single Sample Multi-unit Prophet Inequalities. With Peter Westbrook. SOSA 2026.
- Secretary Problems: The Power of a Single Sample. With Jan Vondrak. SODA 2023.
- A Tight Competitive Ratio for Online Submodular Welfare Maximization. With Amit Ganz and Roy Schwartz. ESA 2023.
- The Secretary Problem with Distributions. IPCO 2022.
Working Papers
- Optimal Prophet Inequalities with Buyback. With Farbod Ekbatani, Rad Niazadeh, and Jan Vondrak. Submitted.
- Stationary Online Contention Resolution Schemes. With Mohammad Reza Aminian and Rad Niazadeh. Submitted.
- Optimal Bayesian Online Allocation of Reusable Resources. With Mohammad Reza Aminian and Rad Niazadeh. Submitted.
Awards
- Polya Teaching Fellow Award (2024).
- Robert Osserman Teaching Award (2022).
- Hoefer Mentoring Award (2022).
Teaching and Mentoring
Teaching
- Linear Algebra, Stanford Summer Engineering Academy. Instructor, 2021-2022. Course materials.
- Stanford Jail and Prison Education Project (SJPEP). Instructor, 2023.
Mentoring
- Stanford Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (SURIM). 2023. Mentees: Ethan Zhang, Ezra Steinberg, Peter Westbrook, Quinn McIntyre. Student report.
- Directed Reading Program, Stanford Mathematics. 2020-2022, 2024. Mentees: Alessandra Maranca, Sophia Sanchez, Ellen Xu, Donald Poindexter, Logan Bhamidipaty, Sohan Vichare.
- Stanford Summer Engineering Academy. 2023. Mentees: Talia Blum, Zhihan Li.
- TA Mentoring Program, Stanford Mathematics. 2022-2023. Mentees: Yosheb Getachew, Joao Campos Vargas, Zhenyuan Zhang, Hongjian Yang.
- Alex Huang. Research mentee, 2025.