Amit Harlev

PhD Student
Center for Applied Math, Cornell University
[email protected]

About Me

I am a fourth year PhD student at Cornell University's Center for Applied Mathematics where I am fortunate to be advised by Ziv Scully. My research focuses on scheduling in queues, with a particular interest in minimizing tail metrics and the Gittins index. I received my undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Harvey Mudd College in 2022. In 2024, I was awarded the NDSEG (accepted) and NSF GRFP (declined) graduate fellowships. Previously, I was a full time software engineer at Meta (2021). Recently, I started a blog and submitted by first post to SoME4.

Full Papers

A Gittins Policy for Optimizing Tail Latency

Amit Harlev, George Yu, Ziv Scully.

POMACS, 2025 (SIGMETRICS 2025 issue).

[paper][slides][extended abstract][doi]

Short version: Performance Evaluation Review, 2024 (MAMA 2024 issue). [paper][slides][doi]

The Doubly Stochastic Single Eigenvalue Problem: A Computational Approach

Amit Harlev, Charles R. Johnson, Derek Lim.

Experimental Mathematics, 2020.

[arXiv][doi]

Short Papers and Preprints

Empirical Gittins: M/G/1 Scheduling from Job Size Samples

Shefali Ramakrishna, Amit Harlev, Ziv Scully.

Performance Evaluation Review, 2025 (MAMA 2025 issue).

[paper][doi]

Combinatorial Selection with Costly Information

Shuchi Chawla, Dimitris Christou, Amit Harlev, Ziv Scully.

arXiv, 2024 (Submitted to SODA 2026).

[arXiv]

Exploring Learned Representations of Neural Networks with Principal Component Analysis

Amit Harlev, Andrew Engel, Panos Stinis, Tony Chiang.

arXiv, 2023.

[arXiv]

Service

  • Webmaster for SNAPP Seminar (Fall 2024 - Present)
  • Co-founder and co-organizer for the Student Colloquium in Applied Mathematics (SCAM) at Cornell (Fall 2024 - Present)
  • Co-organizer for the Cornell Center for Applied Mathematics PhD student mentoring program (Fall 2024 - Present)
  • Cornell AWM chapter mentor (Nov 2022 - May 2023)
  • Directed Reading Program mentor - discrete probability and Markov chains (Fall 2024)
  • Reviewer for NeurIPS 2024 Workshop on Bayesian Decision-making and Uncertainty.

Teaching

  • Fall 2025: Guest Lecture on Markov chain convergence in ORIE 6500: Applied Stochastic Processes, Cornell University
  • Fall 2023: Teaching Assistant, Math 1910: Calculus for Engineers, Cornell University
  • Spring 2023: Teaching Assistant, Math 2940: Linear Algebra for Engineers, Cornell University
  • Fall 2022: Teaching Assistant, Math 2940: Linear Algebra for Engineers, Cornell University

Fellowships and Awards