Klaus-Tycho Foerster

CV: Since 2017, Klaus-Tycho Foerster is a postdoctoral researcher at Aaalborg University, Denmark, working with Stefan Schmid. Previously, he was a visiting researcher for three months at Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA, working with Ratul Mahajan. His doctoral studies took place from 2011 to 2016 in the Distributed Computing Group at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, under the supervision of Roger Wattenhofer. He received his PhD degree from ETH Zurich in September 2016.
Prior to joining ETH as a research assistant, he earned his Diplomas in mathematics (advised by Sándor Fekete, 2007, pre-diploma 2005) and computer science (advised by Jirí Adámek, 2011, pre-diploma 2005), both at the Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany. In parallel, he worked for 11 months as a research assistant at the University of Hildesheim, Germany, with Barbara Schmidt-Thieme, and obtained his second state examination (advised by Eckart Modrow, 2010), teaching mathematics and computer science for two years at the Max-Planck Gymnasium Göttingen, Germany.

Research interests: My research focus revolves around algorithms and complexity in the areas of networking, distributed computing, and didactics, e.g.:

• Optical Networking: [SIGCOMM'17]

• Consistent Network Updates in SDNs: [ArXiv] [PMC'17|ICDCN'16] [INFOCOM'16] [NETWORKING'16] [ICCCN'16] [TCS]

• Graph Exploration / Agent-Based Computing: [SIROCCO'17] [CIAC'17] [TCS'16|OPODIS'12] [SIROCCO'15]

• Local Checkability (Proof Labeling): [ICDCN'17] [TCS|ICDCN'16]

• Didactics: [INFOS'17] [EDUCON'17] [SIGITE'16|SIGITE'15] [SIGITE'16]

News and upcoming Travel

• I will participate in the Dagstuhl Seminar 18101 on Scheduling.

• I am on the TPC of IFIP Networking 2018 (Call for Papers). Abstract deadline is December 1, 2017.

• I am on the TPC of a special session on Game-Based Learning at IMCL 2017. Deadline is September 8, 2017.

• I will present my paper about didactics of computer networks at INFOS 2017.

• Slides of DIMACS Workshop on Algorithms for Data Center Networks.

Publications

Journals (peer-reviewed, international)

1. Augmenting Flows for the Consistent Migration of Multi-Commodity Single-Destination Flows in SDNs
   Sebastian Brandt, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   Pervasive and Mobile Computing (PMC), Volume 36, pp. 134-150, April 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf link external

2. Lower and Upper Competitive Bounds for Online Directed Graph Exploration
   Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer.
   Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), Volume 655, Part A, pp. 15-29, December 2016.
   Documents: paper pdf link external

3. Local Checkability, No Strings Attached: (A)cyclicity, Reachability, Loop Free Updates in SDNs
   Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Thomas Luedi, Jochen Seidel, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   Accepted for publication in Theoretical Computer Science (TCS).
   Documents: paper pdf link external

Conference Proceedings (peer-reviewed, international, full papers)

4. Understanding and Mitigating Packet Corruption in Data Center Networks
   Danyang Zhuo, Monia Ghobadi, Ratul Mahajan, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Thomas Anderson.
   Annual Conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM), Los Angeles, CA, USA, August 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf

5. Wireless Evacuation on m Rays with k Searchers
   Sebastian Brandt, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Benjamin Richner, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   24th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO), Porquerolles, France, June 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf

6. Multi-Agent Pathfinding with n Agents on Graphs with n Vertices: Combinatorial Classification and Tight Algorithmic Bounds
   Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Linus Groner, Torsten Hoefler, Michael Koenig, Sascha Schmid, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   10th International Conference on Algorithms and Complexity (CIAC), Athens, Greece, May 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf

7. Teaching Spatial Geometry in a Virtual World: Using Minecraft in Mathematics in Grade 5/6
   Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
   8th IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Athens, Greece, April 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf

8. Local Checkability in Dynamic Networks
   Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Oliver Richter, Jochen Seidel, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   18th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN), Hyderabad, India, January 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf link external

9. Distributed Discussion Diarisation
   Pascal Bissig, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Simon Tanner, and Roger Wattenhofer.
   14th Annual IEEE Consumer and Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, January 2017.
   Documents: paper pdf

10. Integrating Programming into the Mathematics Curriculum: Combining Scratch and Geometry in Grades 6 and 7
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster
    17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE), Boston, MA, USA, September 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

11. The Power of Two in Consistent Network Updates: Hard Loop Freedom, Easy Flow Migration
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer
    25th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), Waikoloa, Hi, USA, August 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

12. Consistent Updates in Software Defined Networks: On Dependencies, Loop Freedom, and Blackholes
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Ratul Mahajan, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    15th IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking), Vienna, Austria, May 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

13. On Consistent Migration of Flows in SDNs (Best-in-session presentation award)
    Sebastian Brandt, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    36th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), San Francisco, California, USA, April 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

14. Augmenting Anycast Network Flows (Best paper session)
    Sebastian Brandt, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    17th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN), Singapore, January 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

15. Local Checkability, No Strings Attached (Best paper award)
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Thomas Luedi, Jochen Seidel, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    17th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN), Singapore, January 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

16. Lower Bounds for the Capture Time: Linear, Quadratic, and Beyond
    Klaus-Tycho Foester, Rijad Nuridini, Jara Uitto, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    22nd International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO), Montserrat, Spain, July 2015.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

17. SpareEye: A Smart Phone App that Enhances the Safety of the Inattentionally Blind
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Alex Gross, Nino Hail, Jara Uitto, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    The 13th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM), Melbourne, Australia, November 2014.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

18. Deterministic Leader Election in Multi-Hop Beeping Networks
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Jochen Seidel, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    28th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC), Austin, Texas, USA, October 2014.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

19. Directed Graph Exploration
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer.
    16th International Conference On Principles Of Distributed Systems (OPODIS), Rome, Italy, December 2012.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

Workshop Proceedings (peer-reviewed, international)

20. A Walk in the Clouds: Routing through VNFs on Bidirected Networks
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Mahmoud Parham and Stefan Schmid.
    3rd International Workshop on Algorithmic Aspects of Cloud Computing (ALGOCLOUD), Vienna, Austria, September 2017.
    

21. Destroying networks for fun (and profit)
    Nick Shelly, Brendan Tschaen, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Michael Chang, Theophilus Benson, and Laurent Vanbever.
    14th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets), Philadelphia, PA, USA, November 2015.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

22. Approximating Fault-Tolerant Domination in General Graphs
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    10th Meeting on Analytic Algorithmics and Combinatorics (ANALCO) New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, January, 2013
    Documents: paper pdf link external

Conference Proceedings (peer-reviewed, international, short papers)

22. RTDS: Real-Time Discussion Statistics
    Pascal Bissig, Jan Deriu, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    15th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM), Rovaniemi, Finland, December 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

23. Reducing the Latency-Tail of Short-Lived Flows: Adding Forward Error Correction in Data Centers
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Demian Jaeger, David Stolz, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    15th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA), Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

Journals (peer-reviewed, national)

25. Scratch im Geometrieunterricht
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    mathematik lehren (ml), 32, No. 188, pp. 20-24, February 2015.
    Documents: abstract pdf link ME 2015d.00655 external

26. (Netzwerk-)Spiele
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Computer+Unterricht (C+U), 9, No. 36, p. 24, November 1999.
    Documents: link ME 2000d.03004 external

27. Warum gibt es an Ihrer Schule noch keine Computerspiele-AG? Plädoyer für die Einrichtung von Netzwerk-Computerspiele-AGs an Schulen
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Computer+Unterricht (C+U), 9, No. 36, pp. 22-23, November 1999.
    Documents: link ME 2001b.00181 external

Conference Proceedings (peer-reviewed, national, full papers)

28. Vom Flaggenalphabet zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung: Schülerinnen und Schüler als Multiplikatoren technischer Aspekte der digitalen Welt
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    17. GI-Fachtagung Informatik und Schule (INFOS) 2017. Oldenburg, Germany, September 2017.
    Documents: paper pdf

Contributed Articles (national)

29. Scratch von Anfang an
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Beiträge zum Mathematikunterricht (BzMU) 2014. WTM-Verlag, Münster, pp. 373 - 376.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

30. Die Programmiersprache Scratch in der Sekundarstufe I
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Beiträge zum Mathematikunterricht (BzMU) 2013. WTM-Verlag, Münster, pp. 316 - 319.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

31. Raumgeometrie mit Minecraft: Raumvorstellung und kreative Kooperation zu Beginn der Sekundarstufe I
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Beiträge zum Mathematikunterricht (BzMU) 2012. WTM-Verlag, Münster, pp. 273-276.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

32. Neue Möglichkeiten durch die Programmiersprache Scratch: Algorithmen und Programmierung für alle Fächer
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    Beiträge zum Mathematikunterricht (BzMU) 2011. WTM-Verlag, Münster, pp. 262-266.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

Posters (peer-reviewed, international)

33. A Concept for an Introduction to Parallelization in Java: Multithreading with Programmable Robots in Minecraft
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Michael Koenig, and Roger Wattenhofer.
    17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE), Boston, MA, USA, September 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

34. Programming in Scratch and Mathematics: Augmenting Your Geometry Curriculum, Today!
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    16th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (SIGITE), Chicago, IL, USA, October 2015.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

Posters (peer-reviewed, international, without proceedings)

35. Programming as an Everyday Tool in Mathematical Education
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster.
    13th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME), Hamburg, Germany, July 2016.
    Documents: conference ICME13 link TSG 42 (conftool) poster pdf

Dissertation

36. Don't disturb my Flows: Algorithms for Consistent Network Updates in Software Defined Networks
    (Advisor: Roger Wattenhofer, Referees: Ratul Mahajan, Microsoft Research, and Stefan Schmid, Aalborg University)
    Diss ETH No. 23703, TIK-Schriftenreihe Nr. 166
    ISBN 978-1537297170, 2016
    

Chapters

37. Chapter: Cryptography Basics
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer.
    In: Roger Wattenhofer (Ed.), Distributed Ledger Technology: The Science of the Blockchain (pp. 49-70)
    ISBN 978-1544232102, 2017. Available on Amazon.

38. Chapter: Quorum Systems
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer.
    In: Roger Wattenhofer (Ed.), Distributed Ledger Technology: The Science of the Blockchain (pp. 87-104)
    ISBN 978-1544232102, 2017. Available on Amazon.

In the Press

• I was interviewed for a radio program about computer games in the classroom
  PC-Games im Unterricht (Franziska Glatt). In: SWR2 Wissen, Südwestrundfunk, April 2, 2016.
  Documents: link external

Talks

Some talks:

• Local Checkability [slides]. Similar talks at:
  

  • "Local Checkability, No Strings Attached". Theory of Distributed Systems Group, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, December 2015.

  • "Local Checkability, No Strings Attached: (A)cyclicity, Reachability & Dynamic Networks". Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, September 2016. Link external.

  • "Local Checkability, No Strings Attached: (A)cyclicity, Reachability, Loop Free Updates in SDNs". Highlights of Algorithms (HALG), Berlin, Germany, June 2017. Link external.

• Network Updates [slides]. Similar talks at:
  

  • "On the Computational Complexity of some Consistency Properties in SDNs". Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, October 2015. Link external.

  • "Software Defined Networks: Algorithms and Mechanisms". 3rd Annual Swiss Joint Research Centre Workshop, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, February 2016.

  • "Moving Network Flows without Congestion: Different Models, different Complexities". Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, June 2016. Link external.

  • "Don't disturb my Flows: Consistent Migration in SDNs". NSF Algorithms in the Field (AiTF) Workshop on Algorithms for Software-Defined Networking, DIMACS Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, June 2016. Link external YouTube.

  • "On Consistent Migration of Flows in SDNs". Highlights of Algorithms (HALG), Paris, France, June 2016. Link external.

  • "Consistent Migration of Flows in SDNs". HUAWEI France Research Center, Paris, France, June 2016.

  • "Towards Lossless Data Center Reconfiguration: Consistent Network Updates in SDNs". DIMACS Workshop on Algorithms for Data Center Networks, DIMACS Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, June 2017. Link external

• Lower and Upper bounds for Online Directed Graph Exploration [slides].

  • 7th workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications (GRASTA-MAC 2015), Montréal, Canada, October 2015. Link external.

• Integrating Programming into the Mathematics Curriculum slides [German] [English] .

  • "Nur was Du programmieren kannst, das hast Du verstanden!". Colloquium Mathematik im Mittelpunkt, University of Hildesheim, Germany, May 2017. Link programme.

• Understanding and Mitigating Packet Corruption in Data Center Networks.

  • Internet Network Architectures group, TU Berlin, Germany, June 2017. Link external.

Tech Reports

Note that the following documents are sometimes drafts only or work in progress.

39. Charting the Complexity Landscape of Waypoint Routing
    Saeed Akhoondian Amiri, Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Riko Jacob, and Stefan Schmid.
    ArXiv Technical Report, April 2017.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

40. Survey of Consistent Network Updates
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster, Stefan Schmid, and Stefano Vissicchio.
    ArXiv Technical Report, September 2016.
    Documents: paper pdf link external

41. The Solitaire Memory Game
    Klaus-Tycho Foerster and Roger Wattenhofer.
    Technical Report, ETH Zurich, 2013.
    Documents: paper pdf
    Please see the following paper by Velleman and Warrington where the conjectured number of roughly 1.61n moves was proven: What to Expect in a Game of Memory.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant:

• Computer Engineering 2, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Spring 2016.

• Discrete Event Systems, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Fall 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

  • Lecturer for the chapter Specification Models (State Charts and Petri Nets), Fall 2014, 2013.

• Distributed Systems, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Fall 2015, 2014.

• Lecturer for the chapter Network Updates, Fall 2015.

• Seminar in Distributed Computing, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Fall 2015, 2014.

• Principles of Distributed Computing, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Spring 2014, 2013, 2012.

• Theoretische Informatik II, Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany, Summer 2008, 2007.

• Theoretische Informatik I, Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany, Winter 2007/08, 2006/07.

Courses:

• Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (IuK), University of Hildesheim, Germany, Summer 2011 and Winter 2010/11.

• Fachpraktikum Mathematik, University of Hildesheim, Germany, Summer 2011 and Winter 2010/11.

• Teaching mathematics and computer science in grades 5-13, Max-Planck Gymnasium Göttingen, Germany, November 2008 to October 2010.

Community

TPCs and Miscellany:

• Program Committee IFIP NETWORKING, Zurich, Switzerland, May 2018.

• Program Committee IMCL (Special Session: Game-Based Learning), Thessaloniki, Greece, November 2017.

• Program Committee ICL (Special Session: Game-Based Learning), Budapest, Hungary, September 2017.

• Program Committee IFIP NETWORKING, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2017.

• Publicity Chair ALGOSENSORS, Patras, Greece, September 2015.

Reviewer (Conferences):

ACM SPAA, IEEE INFOCOM, ICALP, SIROCCO, IEEE EDUCON, ACM SIGITE, CIAC, SOFSEM, ICDCN, SSS, Euro-Par, MFCS, DISC, ICPP, ICL etc.

Reviewer (Journals):

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review, IEEE Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, IEEE Communications Letters, Elsevier Computer Networks etc.

Students

• Spring 2017: DAT 6 Bachelorproject (Automated Tourist Guide).

• For the 31 students supervised at ETH Zurich, please refer to my old website.

I would like to thank Stefan Schmid for allowing me to copy the layout of his website. Last Change: Sunday, 23-July-2017