Faculty Profiles

Minnes has research and teaching expertise in theory of computation and foundational mathematics.  She works to help students develop strong grounding in core reasoning and problem solving skills to prepare for future success.  She is a founding faculty member of the Summer Program for Incoming Students in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. The 5-week residential summer program is an intensive combination of academics, project-based learning, and seminars in writing and research to motivate and prepare incoming freshmen for their studies at UC San Diego and beyond. Minnes also is the faculty sponsor for the Summer Internship Symposium in the CSE department, which highlights connections between academics and industry projects.  Previously at the MIT Department of Mathematics, she helped conceive and build MathDL Mathematical Communication, a resource for engaging students in writing and speaking about mathematics.  In 2010 the NSF awarded an NSDL grant to make the site public, and it is now hosted by the Mathematical Association of America as part of MathDL.  Minnes’ research projects include studying the effect of randomness on computational power, as well as models of efficient on-line computation.

Capsule Bio:

Mia Minnes joined the UC San Diego Computer Science and Engineering department in 2014. Prior to that, she held postdoctoral positions first as a CLE Moore Instructor at MIT (2008-10) and then as an SE Warschawski Visiting Assistant Professor at UCSD (2010-14). She earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics at Cornell University in 2008, co-advised by Anil Nerode and Bakhadyr Khoussainov. She earned Master's degrees in Computer Science (2006) and Mathematics (2006) from Cornell and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Engineering (2003) and Philosophy (2003) from Queen's University.    In 2009 and 2010 she received research grants from the NSF to study "Automata in Geometric Groups, Combinatorics, and Logic".  She has mentored undergraduate research and has initiated and participated in many outreach efforts to broaden participation and increase success in STEM fields.