Nicholas Kocurek

I am a 4th year undergraduate student studying Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon.

Contact is nkocurek at andrew dot cmu dot edu.

Picture is from the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center in Philly

Research

I am broadly interested in theoretical computer science and particularly in beyond worst-case complexity theory of any kind. Recently I have been thinking about the structure of CSPs from a Sum-of-Squares perspective and about how Markov chains mix.

Publications

Other Writings

Teaching

In Spring 2025, I am TAing 15-251: Great Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science and 15-455: Undergraduate Complexity Theory at CMU.

In the past I have TAed:

Along with teaching, I am also a member of CMU School of Computer Science's Student Advisory Council.

Miscellaneous

I am a big fan of mystery novels, animation, Pittsburgh sports, and playing social deduction and survival horror games with my friends.

Here is a simple diagram explaining the etymology of "kolache" in Texas.