The Theory Student Seminar (TSS) is a student-run seminar which exists to save theory students time and effort in reading "classic" papers and keeping in touch with active research and open problems in theoretical computer science. We meet once a week, late afternoon, for about an hour in the theory lab. Though the TSS is driven by the graduate students of the theory group, we welcome everyone (undergrads, graduate students, postdocs, etc.) to attend.
Presentations are given by the body of attendees, though new students are not expected to give a talk during their first term. Some of the most successful presentations were tutorials on topics related to theoretical computer science, from model theory to Chernoff bounds. The TSS is also an appropriate place for practice talks. For a list of previous topics, click here.
Theory Student Seminar for 2025 Fall term will be on Thursdays 5 - 6 pm in SF 3208-10. If you would like to be added to or removed from the mailing list where talk advertisements and abstracts are circulated, email tssadmin [at] cs.toronto.edu.
The topics are mostly graduate level but the presenters should make it more accessible to people without previous background in the specific research field. For undergraduate students at UofT who wants to attend the talks, passing second year theory courses like CSC236/240 and CSC263/265 would be a bare minimum. We expect the audience to be familiar with probability, linear algebra, algorithms analysis, and basics of complexity theory. We also recommend CS Theory Toolkit lecture series by Ryan O'Donnell, which helps you explore different topics in theoretical computer science.