ITCS

The papers in this volume were presented at the 7th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS 2016) conference, sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT). The conference was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, USA, January 14-16, 2016. ITCS (previously known as ICS) seeks to promote research that carries a strong conceptual message, for instance, introducing a new concept or model, opening a new line of inquiry within traditional or cross-interdisciplinary areas, introducing new techniques, or making novel connections between existing areas and ideas. The conference format is single-session with ample time for discussion, to promote the exchange of ideas between different areas of theoretical computer science and with other disciplines.

The call for papers welcomed all submissions, whether aligned with current theory of computation research directions or deviating from them. 145 submissions were received. Of these, the program committee selected 40 papers. I would like to thank authors of all submissions for their interest in ITCS.

The program committee consisted of 23 members (plus the chair): Nikhil Bansal, Eindhoven; Eli Ben-Sasson, Technion; Bernard Chazelle, Princeton; Moritz Hardt, Google; Yuval Ishai, Technion; Brendan Juba, Washington U., St. Louis; Adam Kalai, MSR; Anna Karlin, U. Washington; Sanjeev Khanna, U. Penn.; Valerie King, U. Victoria; Katrina Ligett, Caltech; Ruta Mehta, Georgia Tech.; Rotem Oshman, Tel Aviv; Rafael Pass, Cornell; Anup Rao, U. Washington; Omer Reingold, Samsung Research America; Aaron Roth, U. Penn.; Rocco Servedio, Columbia; Yaron Singer, Harvard; Adam Smith, Penn. State; Greg Valiant, Stanford; Thomas Vidick, Caltech; and Nisheeth Vishnoi, EPFL. I wish to express my sincere thanks to them for agreeing to join the committee and then for investing time and effort the merits of the submissions. The many subreviewers who assisted the reviewing process deserve acknowledgment as well.

The local organizations were undertaken by Shafi Goldwasser (MIT & Weizmann). I'd like to thank Shafi, for this service as also for her service as steering committee chair of ITCS while ITCS remains in its early stages! The submissions and program committee deliberations were conducted using the platform generated by Shai Halevi. I would like to thank Shai for generously contributing his time to the running of the system and helping me work with it! I would additionally like to thank IACR for hosting the server. I also thank Tim Roughgarden (Program Chair of ITCS 2015) for his help. Finally, I would like to thank all the presenters and the audience at ITCS and hope it continues to be a unique experience.