Martin Edward Dyer is a professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 in the School of Computing at the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He graduated from the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

 in 1967, obtained his MSc from Imperial College, University of London in 1968 and his PhD from the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

 in 1979. His research interests lie in theoretical computer science

Theoretical computer science

Theoretical computer science is a division or subset of general computer science and mathematics which focuses on more abstract or mathematical aspects of computing....

, discrete optimization

Discrete optimization

Discrete optimization is a branch of optimization in applied mathematics and computer science.As opposed to continuous optimization, the variables used in the mathematical program are restricted to assume only discrete values, such as the integers.Two notable branches of discrete optimization...

 and combinatorics

Combinatorics

Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...

. Currently, he focuses on the complexity of counting and the efficiency of Markov chain algorithms for approximate counting.

Key contributions

Four key contributions made by Martin Dyer are:

(1) - polynomial time algorithm for approximating the volume of convex bodies

(2) - linear programming in fixed dimensions

(3) - the path coupling method for proving mixing of Markov chains (with Russ Bubley)

(4) - complexity of counting constraint satisfaction problems

The paper

is a joint work by Martin Dyer, Alan Frieze and Ravindran Kannan

Ravindran Kannan

Ravindran Kannan is currently a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India, where he leads the algorithms research group. He is also the first adjunct faculty of Computer Science and Automation Department of Indian Institute of Science. Before joining Microsoft, he was the William K. Lanman...

.

Awards and honors

In 1991, Professor Dyer received the Fulkerson Prize

Fulkerson Prize

The Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in the area of discrete mathematics is sponsored jointly by the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society . Up to three awards of $1500 each are presented at each International Symposium of the MPS...

in Discrete Mathematics (Jointly with Alan Frieze and Ravi Kannan for the paper "A random polynomial time algorithm for approximating the volume of convex bodies" in the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery) awarded by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Programming Society.