Updated: August 2024

Manor Mendel

Contact Information

Education

• Ph.D.                School of Computer Science, Tel-Aviv University, 2002. Dissertation: Online Algorithms for Paging and Metrical Task Systems. Advisor:  Amos Fiat
• B.Sc.              Mathematics and Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude), School of Mathematics & Computer Science, Tel-Aviv University, 1991.
• High School        Beit-Yerach, 1988

Academic Appointments

• 2014 - present    Full Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science Department, The Open University of Israel.
• 2010 - 2014        Associate Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science Department, The Open University of Israel.
• 7/2012 - 6/2013 Member, Institute for Advanced Study.
• 1/2012 - 6/2012 Visiting Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Washington.
• 6/2011 - 12/2011 Visiting Researcher, Theory Group, Microsoft Research Redmond.
• 2005 - 2010       Senior Lecturer, Computer Science Division, The Open University of Israel.
• 2004 - 2005      Postdoctoral fellow at The California Institute of Technology's Information Science and Technology.
• 2003 - 2004      Postdoctoral fellow at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Host: Sariel Har-Peled.
• 2001 - 2003      Postdoctoral fellow at The Hebrew University. Hosts: Nati Linial and Yair Bartal.

Pedagogical Experience

• Codeveloped a MOOC on “Algorithms” (in Hebrew) for campus.gov.il (2021) and The Open University of Israel (2024)
• Codeveloped an M.Sc. course “Advanced topics in Algorithms” (Open University, 2015). As part of the course I wrote the textbook “Introduction to expander graphs” (in Hebrew) (2020).
• Developed a B.Sc. course “Algorithms” based on a Hebrew  translation of the book "Algorithm Design" by Kleinberg & Tardos (Open University, 2009).
• Taught and TAed the courses Computational models, Efficiency of Computation, C programming for Engineers, Complexity   (Tel-Aviv University 1997 - 2001).
• Research Seminar in Algorithms and Theory (Open University 2006 - 2024).
• Academic supervision for the B.Sc. courses “Algorithms”, “Compilation”, “Logics for CS” (Open University)
• Academic supervision for the M.Sc. courses “Advanced topics in Algorithms”, “Randomized Algorithms”, “Computational Geometry” (Open University)

Academic Administrative Activities

• 10/2025 - present  Member of the appointment committee for the ranks of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, The Open University of Israel
• 10/2024 - present  Member of the appointment committee for the ranks of Associate and Full Professors, The Open University of Israel
• 9/2024 - present   Head of the senate subcommittee for Mathematics and Computer Science
• 10/2022 - present Member of department teaching committee, The Open University of Israel
• 10/2020 - 9/2021  Head of the Computer Science section, The Open University of Israel
• 10/2019 - 9/2022  Member of the appointment committee for the ranks of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, The Open University of Israel
• 10/2015 - 9/2018  Member of the appointment committee for the ranks of Associate and Full Professors, The Open University of Israel
• 10/2017 - 9/2020   Member of the steering committee of the Research Authority, The Open University of Israel
• 7/2014 -  9/2017   Chairman of the steering committee of the Research Authority, The Open University of Israel
• 7/2014 -  9/2017   Dean of  Research, Research Authority, The Open University of Israel
• 3/2014 -  6/2014   Head of the Mathematics & Computer Science Department, The Open University of Israel.

• 2007 - 2011           Head of the M.Sc. program, Computer Science Division, The Open University.
• 2006 - 2011           Member of The M.Sc. academic committee, Computer Science Division, The Open University.

Non-Academic Experience

• 2014 - 2017           Chairman of the Board of Directors of “OpMop LTD”.
• 1996 - 1997           Member of the ATM lab, Tel-Aviv university.
• 1994 - 1996           Military service. Technical officer in a logistics software project.
• 1992 - 1994           Military service. Unix system administrator.
• 1991 - 1992           Military service. IBM MF programmer
• 1982 - 1991           Agricultural worker (part time) in Kibbutz Gesher, Israel.

Fields of Research

Algorithms and geometry in discrete metric spaces, online algorithms, optimization algorithms, metric geometry, non-linear geometry of Banach spaces, data-structures.

Scholarships & Prizes

• von Neumann Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), Jul 2012- Jun 2013.
• Prof. Pazy memorial research award, Binational Science Foundation, 2011.
• Postdoctoral fellow, The Edmund Landau Minerva Center for Research in Mathematical Analysis and Related Areas, The Hebrew University, 2003.
• Excellence prize for Ph.D. studies, The School of Computer Science, Tel-Aviv University, 2001.
• The Maus prize for excellence in Ph.D. studies, Tel-Aviv University, 2000.

Sponsored Research

• 2019 - 2025   U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, grant no. 2018223: Lipschitz and Coarse Geometry Through the Lens of Banach Spaces (together with A. Naor). $113,200.
• 2012 - 2017 Israel Science Foundation, grant no.  93/11: Metric geometry in algorithms, $130,000.
• 2011 - 2017 U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, grant no. 2010021: Metric invariants and nonlinear spectral gaps (together with A. Naor). $86,000. Won the Pazy memorial award.
• 2007 - 2012 Israel Science Foundation, grant no. 221/07: Geometric aspects of metric spaces and their algorithmic applications, $85,000.
• 2007 - 2011 U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, grant no. 2006009: Geometric techniques for the analysis and design of algorithms on metric data' (together with A. Naor), $78,000.
• 2008 - 2009 A gift from Cisco research center: Methods for Developing Efficient Multicore Algorithms (together with Z. Lotker) $60,000.

Refereeing

Analysis and Geometry in Metric Spaces (AGMS), J. American Math. Soc. (JAMS), Proc. American Math. Soc. (PAMS), Tran. American Math. Soc. (TAMS), Annales scientifiques de l'ENS, Annals of Mathematics,  Combinatorics, Probability, and Computing (CPC), J. Combin. Theory Ser. B,  Discrete Applied Mathematics, SIAM J. Discrete Math. (SIDMA), Discrete & Computational Geometry (DCG), J. Functional Analysis (JFA), Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik (Crelle’s), Geometric And Functional Analysis (GAFA), GAFA seminar notes, International Mathematics Research Notices (IMRN), Israel J. Math., Linear Algebra & Applications, Bull. London Math. Soc. (BLMS) , J. London Math. Soc. (JLMS), J. Mathematical Analysis and Applications, Memoirs of the European Mathematical Society (MEMS), Probability Theory and Related Fields (PTRF), J. Topology and Analysis, Mathematika,

J. ACM (JACM), SIAM J. Comput. (SICOMP),  Theoret. Comput. Sci. (TCS), Info. Proc. Let. (IPL), Journal of Discrete Algorithms, Algorithmica, ACM Transactions on Algorithms

IEEE Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA), ACM/International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG), ATCS European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA), International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP),  Latin American Theoretical Informatics (LATIN),  Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC), Intl. Workshop on Randomization and Computation (RANDOM), Intl. Workshop on Approximation Algorithms (APPROX), Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA)

Israel Science Foundation (ISF), US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) , (US) NSA Mathematical Sciences Grant Program.

Supervision of Theses

• Chaya Schwob, M.Sc. in Computer Science, The Open University of Israel, 2006-2008.

Supervision of active students

• 2024-         2025        Sebastian Gietl, Ph.D. in Mathematics, Weizmann Institute,  (together with Prof. Boaz Klartag, Weizmann Institute)
• 2024- present                 Chai Sarfati, M.Sc. in Computer Science The Open University of Israel.

Service

• Co-organizer of MSRI workshop “Quantitative Geometry in Computer Science”, Berkeley, CA, 2011.
• Co-organizer of MSRI program “Quantitative Geometry”, Berkeley, CA, 2011
• Co-organizer IPAM workshop “Quantitative and computational aspects of metric geometry” , Los-Angeles, CA, 2009.
• Co-organizer, Discrete Math. session in the Israeli Mathematical Union meeting, Ashkelon, Israel, 2008.
• Member of ad-hoc committees of experts advising Israel Science Foundation (ISF), US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) on grant proposals.

Recent and Selected Talks

• Lower bounds for approximation of the average distance of finite spaces in the distance oracle model.  AIM workshop on “metric embedding” (Pasadena, 2025)
• Rudimentary Walsh analysis in Hadamard spaces and the pursuit of Hadamard expanders. “Analysis and Geometry on Discrete Spaces”, Hausdorff Institute of Mathematics (Bonn, 2024)
• Ramsey-type theorems for metric spaces. Functional Analysis Seminar IMJ-PRG (Paris, 2023)
• Nonpositive curvature is not coarsely universal.  Workshop on Geometry and Its Applications (Carmiel, 2018)
• Expanders and coarse non-universality of CAT(0) spaces. Oberwolfach workshop “Super-expanders and their coarse geometry” (Oberwolfach, 2018)
• On gentle partitions of unity and Lipschitz extension of finite metrics. C.I.R.M workshop “Nonlinear functional analysis”  (Luminy, 2018)
• Expanders in metric spaces. HU mathematics Colloquium (Jerusalem, 2015)
• Expanders with respect to metric space. Israel CS Theory Day (Raanana, 2014)
• Ultrametric skeletons. Asymptotic Geometric Analysis Seminar (Tel-Aviv, 2013)
• Expanders with respect to random regular graphs. Rutgers Discrete Mathematics Seminar, (New Brunswick, NJ 2013)
• Ramsey Theory for Metric Spaces. CSDM seminar, Institute for Advanced Study, (Princeton, NJ 2013)
• The Ribe Program. CSDM seminar, Institute for Advanced Study, (Princeton, NJ 2013)
• Expanders with respect to random regular graphs. Princeton Discrete Mathematics Seminar (Princeton, NJ 2012)
• “Probabilistic reasoning in quantitative geometry” workshop (MSRI, Berkeley CA, 2011)
• CS Colloquium, Technion (Haifa, 2011)
• “Expander and Derandomization” workshop (Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris; 2011)
• “Embedding” workshop  (Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK 2011)
• CS colloquium, Bar-Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, 2010)
• Combinatorics seminar, Tel-Aviv University (Tel-Aviv, 2002, 2009).
• Mathematics colloquium, Tel-Aviv University (Tel-Aviv, 2008)
• "Limits of graphs in group theory and computer science" CIB semester (Lausanne, 2007)
• Israel Mathematical Union meeting (Discrete Math session) (Be'er-Sheva, 2007)
• CS colloquium, Ben-Gurion University (Be'er-Sheva, 2004, 2005, and 2007).
• "Geometry and Algorithms" ICMS workshop (Edinburgh, 2007)
• Workshop in Analysis and Probability (Texas A&M University, 2006).
• Mathematics colloquium, Bar-Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, 2006)
• Mathematics colloquium, The Hebrew University (Jerusalem, 2006)
• Workshop in Analysis and Probability (College-Station TX, 2006)
• AMS Southeast Section Meeting (Johnson City, TN; 2005).
• CS colloquium, Simon Fraser University (Burnaby BC, 2005).
• CS colloquium, University of Haifa (Haifa, 2005).
• CS colloquium, University of Florida (Gainesville FL, 2005).
• CS colloquium, Dartmouth College (Hanover NH, 2004).
• Haifa workshop on discrete metric spaces (Haifa, Israel; 2004).
• DIMACS workshop on discrete metric spaces (Princeton, NJ; 2003).
• Haifa workshop on discrete metric spaces (Haifa, Israel; 2002).
• Dagstuhl workshop on competitive analysis (Schloss Dagstuhl, 1999).

Active Participation in Conferences & Workshops

• “Analysis and Geometry on Discrete Spaces”, Hausdorff Institute of Mathematics (Bonn, 2024)
• “Super-expanders and their coarse geometry” (Oberwolfach, 2018)
• “Nonlinear functional analysis”  (C.I.R.M., Luminy, 2018)
• “Israel CS Theory Day” (Raanana, 2014)
• “Quantitative geometry in Computer Science” workshop (MSRI, Berkeley CA, 2011)
• “Probabilistic reasoning in quantitative geometry” workshop (MSRI, Berkeley CA, 2011)
• “Expander and Derandomization” workshop (Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris; 2011)
• “Embedding” workshop  (Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK 2011)
• Israeli Mathematical Union meeting (Be'er-Sheva, 2007; Ashkelon, 2008)
• "Geometry and Algorithms" ICMS workshop (Edinburgh, 2007)
• Workshop in Analysis and Probability (Texas A&M University, 2006).
• AMS Southeast Section Meeting (Johnson City, TN; 2005).
• Haifa workshop on discrete metric spaces (Haifa, Israel; 2004).
• DIMACS workshop on discrete metric spaces (Princeton, NJ; 2003).
• Haifa workshop on discrete metric spaces (Haifa, Israel; 2002).
• Dagstuhl seminar on competitive algorithms (Dagstuhl, Germany; 1999).
• Computer Science conferences: SODA '10, SoCG '08, STOC '03, SODA '03, FOCS '01,STOC '00, FOCS '97.

Translation

Scientific editor of the Hebrew translation of "Algorithm Design" by Jon Kleinberg and Éva Tardos. The Open University Press, 2010.

Publications

Monographs

1. Manor Mendel, Online algorithms for paging and metrical task systems. Ph.D. Dissertation, Tel-Aviv University, 2002.
2. Manor Mendel and Zeev Nutov, Algorithms – a teaching guide (in Hebrew). The Open University of Israel press, 2010.
3. Manor Mendel, Introduction to expander graphs  (in Hebrew) 232 pages. Lamda —The Open University of Israel press, 2020.

Chapters in refereed books

4. Manor Mendel, Metrical Task Systems, entry for "Encyclopedia of Algorithms" (Ming-Yang Kao, ed.) 2008. Springer.
5. Manor Mendel, Metric dichotomies, in "Limits of graphs in group theory and computer science " (G.N. Arzhantseva, A.Valette, eds.) 2008, 59-76. EPFL Press. Available at arXiv:0710.1994.  

Papers in refereed journals

6. Sariel Har-Peled, Manor Mendel, and Dániel Oláh. Reliable Spanners for Metric Spaces. ACM Trans. Algo. 19(1) 1–27. arXiv:2007.08738. Perlim ver.: SoCG 2021
7. Manor Mendel, Dvoretzky-type theorem for Ahlfors regular spaces. Studia Mathematica 268 (2023), 1-22,  arXiv:2106.11737.
8. Manor Mendel, A simple proof of Dvoretzky-type theorem for Hausdorff dimension in doubling spaces. Anal Geom Metr Spaces 10 (2022), 50-62, arXiv:2104.11944,
9. Manor Mendel, A simple proof of Johnson-Lindenstrauss extension. American Mathematical Monthly, 2019. arXiv:1803.03606.
10. Alexandros Eskenazis, Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Nonpositive curvature is not coarsely universal. Invent. Math. 217 (2019), no. 3, 833–886.  arXiv:1808.02179.
11. James R. Lee, Manor Mendel and Mohammad Moharrami, A node-capacitated Okamura-Seymour theorem.  Mathematical programming, Series A. 153(2) 381-415, 2014. arXiv:1209.2744. Prelim. ver.: STOC ‘13.  
12. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Expanders with respect to Hadamard spaces and random graphs. Duke Math. J. 164 (2015), no. 8, 1471–1548. arXiv:1306.5434. Prelim. ver.: ITCS ‘14.
13. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Spectral calculus and Lipschitz extension for barycentric metric spaces.  Analysis and Geometry in Metric Spaces, 1 (2013) 163-199. arXiv:1301.3963.
14. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Nonlinear spectral calculus and super-expanders. Publications mathématiques de l'IHÉS 119 no. 1, 1-95, 2014. arXiv:1207.4705. Prelim. ver.: SODA '10.
15. James R. Lee, Manor Mendel and Mohammad Moharrami, On the Hausdorff dimension of ultrametric subsets in . Fundamenta Mathematicae 218, 285-290,  2012. arXiv:1205.2094.
16. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Ultrametric skeletons.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(48): 19256-19262,  2013. arXiv:1112.3416.
17. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Ultrametric subsets with large Hausdorff dimension. Inventiones mathematicae 192(1): 1-54, 2013.  arXiv:1106.0879.
18. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Markov convexity and local rigidity of distorted metrics. Journal of the European Mathematical Society 15(1):287-337, 2013. arxiv:0803.1697.  Prelim. ver.: SoCG '08.
19. Ohad Giladi, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Improved bounds in the metric cotype inequality for Banach spaces, Journal of Functional Analysis 260 164–194, 2011 . arXiv:1003:0279.
20. Manor Mendel and Chaya Schwob, Fast C-K-R partitions of sparse graphs, Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science,  no. 2, 2009 , arXiv:0809.1902
21. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Maximum gradient embedding and monotone clustering, Combinatorica 30 (2010) no. 5, 581-615. arxiv:cs.DS/0606109. Prelim. ver.: APPROX '07.
22. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Metric cotype, Annals of Mathematics 168 (2008), no. 1, 247-298, available at arXiv:math.FA/0506201. Prelim. ver.: SODA '06.
23. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Ramsey partitions and proximity data structures, Journal of European Mathematical Society 9, no. 2 253-275, 2007. arXiv:cs.DS/0511084 Prelim. ver.: FOCS '06.
24. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Scaled Enflo type is equivalent to Rademacher type, Bulletin London Mathematical Society. 39, no. 3,493-498, 2007. arXiv:math.FA/0506215.
25. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Some applications of Ball's extension theorem, Proceedings of American Mathematical Society 134, 2577-2584, 2006.
26. Sariel Har-Peled and Manor Mendel, Fast construction of nets in low dimensional metrics and their applications, SIAM Journal on Computing 35 (2006), no. 5, 1148-1184, available at arXiv:cs.DS/0409057. Prelim. ver.: SoCG '05.
27. Robert Krauthgamer, James R. Lee, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Measured descent: A new embedding method for finite metric spaces, Geometric and Functional Analysis 15, no. 4, 839-858,  2005. arXiv:cs.DS/0412008. Prelim. ver.: FOCS '04.
28. James R. Lee, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Metric structures in : dimension, snowflakes, and average distortion, European Journal of Combinatorics 26 (2005), no. 8, 1180-1190, available at arXiv:math.MG/0407278. Prelim. ver.: LATIN '04.
29. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Euclidean quotients of finite metric spaces, Advances in Mathematics 189 (2004), no. 2, 451-494. arXiv:math.MG/0406349.
30. Yair Bartal, Nathan Linial, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, On metric Ramsey-type phenomena, Annals of Mathematics 162 (2005), no. 2, 643-709, arXiv:math.MG/0406353. Prelim. ver.: STOC '03.
31. Yair Bartal, Nathan Linial, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Some low distortion metric Ramsey problems, Discrete and Computational Geometry 33 (2005), no. 1, 25-41, arXiv:math.MG/0406358.
32. Yair Bartal, Nathan Linial, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, On metric Ramsey-type dichotomies, Journal of the London Mathematical Society 71(2), 289-303, 2005. arXiv:math.CO/0406374.
33. Yair Bartal, Nathan Linial, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Limitations to Fréchet's metric embedding method, Israel Journal of Mathematics 151, 111-124, 2006. arXiv:math.MG/0406404.
34. Yair Bartal, Nathan Linial, Manor Mendel, and Assaf Naor, Low dimensional embeddings of ultrametrics, European Journal of Combinatorics 25 (2004), no. 1, 87-92.
35. Yair Bartal and Manor Mendel, Multi-embeddings of metric spaces, SIAM Journal on Computing 34 (2004), no. 1, 248-259. arXiv:cs.DS/0408003. Prelim. ver.: SODA '03.
36. Manor Mendel and Steven S. Seiden, Online companion caching, Theoretical Computer Science 324 (2004), no. 2-3, 183-200, available at arXiv:cs.DS/0406036. Prelim. ver.: ESA '02.
37. Yair Bartal, Bela Bollobás, and Manor Mendel, Ramsey-type theorems for metric spaces with applications to online problems, Journal of Computer and System Sciences 72 (2006), no. 5, 890-921. arXiv:cs.DS/0406028. Prelim. ver.:  FOCS '01.
38. Amos Fiat and Manor Mendel. Better algorithms for unfair metrical task systems and applications. SIAM Journal on Computing 32 (2003), no. 6, 1403-1422. arXiv:cs.DS/0406034. Prelim. ver.: STOC '00.

Papers in refereed conference proceedings

39. Yair Bartal and Manor Mendel. Dimension reduction for ultrametrics, SODA '04: 15th Annual Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (2004),  664-665.
40. Amos Fiat and Manor Mendel. Truly online paging with locality of reference, FOCS '97: 38th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (1997), 326-335. arXiv:cs.DS/0601127.

Notes

41. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. A relation between finitary Lipschitz extension moduli, 2017. arXiv:1707.07289
42. Manor Mendel, A note on extensions of approximate ultrametrics, 2012. arXiv:1211.3041
43. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. A note on dichotomies for metric transforms, 2011. arXiv:1102.1800

In preparation (with tentative titles)

44. Alexandros Eskenazis, Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. Oblivious approximator of the average distance in subsets of random regular graphs.
45. Alexandros Eskenazis, Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Metric rigidity of nonpositive curvature
46. Alexandros Eskenazis, Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. Diamond convexity: A bifurcation in the Ribe program.
47. Alexandros Eskenazis, Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. Appendix to “Diamond convexity: a bifurcation in the Ribe program"
48. Manor Mendel, Assaf Naor, and Yuval Rabani. A weighted Sobolev embedding on the discrete torus and nonexistence of gentle partitions of unity.
49. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor, Simple absolute Lipschitz extendability formulae for finite and doubling metric spaces.
50. Manor Mendel and Assaf Naor. Lipschitz extension lower bounds via Poincaré-type inequalities.