Omer Lev

Looking for postdocs and PhD students!

We are looking for postdoctoral researchers and PhD students for projects in computational social choice and algorithmic game theory. Researchers are encouraged to pursue any direction they consider interesting in these fields, as well as be motivated to participate in some of the current main ongoing projects:

Understanding more intricate voting systems that involve agents divisions into sub-groups. These include:
- Primaries — cases where subsets of voters influencing the setting that will be put to the general electorate
  [Example paper]
- District voting and gerrymandering — how do geographic and district-level divisions influence elections. There are interesting theoretical models as well as some great gerrymandering work being done on our servers with real-world data.
  [Example paper 1 | Example paper 2 | Example paper 3]
Working on ways to improve peer evaluation and align its incentives with the desired outcomes (joint project with Prof. Mattei of Tulane University).
[Example paper 1 | Example paper 2]

Postdoc positions are for 1 year, with possibility to renew for an additional year. Candidates are expected to have a PhD in computer science with an interest in theoretical multi-agent systems or algorithmic game theory, or in economics with a game theoretical angle.

PhD candidates should similarly have a MSc. in one of the above mentioned fields.

Ben Gurion University is located in Beersheba, Israel. The campus has many AI and theory researchers in multiple departments, and researchers are encouraged to collaborate with them, as well as with the larger AI, AGT, and COMSOC communities in Israeli academia. Campus surroundings allow for affordable housing, and one can also live in Tel Aviv and reach campus directly by train.

If interested in the postdoc position or doing a PhD, please contact Omer Lev with your CV, which should include a full publication list as well as a sample publication (for PhD candidates: a MSc. thesis is fine). Also attach details of 2-3 people who can be contacted for recommendation letters. Feel free to contact with any question regarding the positions.

Member of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev .

Before joining Ben-Gurion University I was a post-doctoral researcher at the at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Toronto, hosted by Prof. Allan Borodin. I did my PhD. at the School of Computer Science and Engineering of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Prof. Jeff Rosenschein, working in the field of multi-agent systems, particularly on computational social choice, auction theory, and networks. Earlier, I completed an MSc. in mathematics (supervised by Prof. Sergiu Hart), and an MBA (majoring in finance and business strategy).

Interested in various areas of AI and theoretical computer science, mostly involving a game-theoretical analysis trying to understand various phenomena, while keeping the research closely related to real-world data and observable behavior.
Focusing lately on multi-staged decision mechanisms, crowdsourcing and networks.

My CV .

Towards a More Burkean Approach to Computational Social Choice: Omer Lev; 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2024), February 2024, Vancouver, Canada.
[paper | presentation]
Primarily About Primaries: Allan Borodin, Omer Lev, Nisarg Shah and Tyrone Strangway; Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) 329:104095, April 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2024.104095
[paper]
Follow the money: Techniques for pricing rewards in crowdfunding projects: Bar Keisar and Omer Lev; Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (ECRA) 62:101324, November–December 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2023.101324
[paper]
Ask and You Shall be Served: Representing and Solving Multi-agent Optimization Problems with Service Requesters and Providers: Maya Lavie, Tehila Caspi, Omer Lev and Roie Zivan; 22nd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2023), May 2023, London, United Kingdom, 77-85. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3545946.3598622
[paper]
PeerNomination: A novel peer selection algorithm to handle strategic and noisy assessments: Omer Lev, Nicholas Mattei, Paolo Turrini and Stanislav Zhydkov; Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) 316:103773, March 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2022.103843
[paper]
Separate but equal: Equality in Belief Propagation for Single Cycle Graphs: Erel Cohen, Omer Lev and Roie Zivan; 37th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2023), February 2023, Washington D.C., Volume 4, 3924-3931. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v37i4.25506
[paper]
Predicting Voting Outcomes in the Presence of Communities, Echo Chambers and Multiple Parties: Jacques Bara, Omer Lev and Paolo Turrini; Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) 312:103773, November 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2022.103773
[paper | ArXiv]
Hotelling-Downs Equilibria: Moving Beyond Plurality Variants: Alexander Karpov, Omer Lev and Svetlana Obraztsova; 22nd International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation (GDN 2022), June 2021, 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07996-2_1
[paper]
Little House (Seat) on the Prairie: Compactness, Gerrymandering, and Population Distribution: Allan Borodin, Omer Lev, Nisarg Shah and Tyrone Strangway; 21st International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2022), May 2022, Auckland, New Zealand, 154-162. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3535850.3535869
[paper]
Predicting Voting Outcomes in Presence of Communities: Jacques Bara, Omer Lev and Paolo Turrini; 20th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2021), May 2021, London, United Kingdom, 151-159. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3461017.3461041
[paper]
Now superseded by the AIJ version noted above (November 2022).
The Price is (Probably) Right: Learning Market Equilibria from Samples: Omer Lev, Neel Patel, Vignesh Viswanathan and Yair Zick; 20th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2021), May 2021, London, United Kingdom, 755-763. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3461017.3461105
[paper]
One Size Does Not Fit All: A Study of Badge Behavior in Stack Overflow: Stav Yanovsky, Nicholas Hoernle, Omer Lev and Kobi Gal; Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) 72(3):331-345, March 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24409
[paper | ArXiv]
Selecting Voting Locations for Fun and Profit: Zack Fitzsimmons and Omer Lev; 29th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2020), January 2021, Kyoto, Japan, 224-230. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2020/32
[paper]
Beyond Trees: Analysis and Convergence of Belief Propagation in Graphs with Multiple Cycles: Roie Zivan, Omer Lev and Rotem Galiki; 34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2020), February 2020, New York City, New York, 7333-7340. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v34i05.6227
[paper]
Strategyproof peer selection using randomization, partitioning, and apportionment: Haris Aziz, Omer Lev, Nicholas Mattei, Jeffrey S. Rosenschein and Toby Walsh; Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) 275:295-309, October 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2019.06.004
[paper]
One Size Does Not Fit All: Badge Behavior in Q&A sites: Stav Yanovsky, Nicholas Hoernle, Omer Lev and Kobi Gal; 27th ACM Conference On User Modelling, Adaptation And Personalization (UMAP 2019), June 2019, Larnaca, Cyprus, 113-120. https://doi.org/10.1145/3320435.3320438
[paper]
Now superseded by the JASIST version noted above (March 2021).
Primarily About Primaries: Allan Borodin, Omer Lev, Nisarg Shah and Tyrone Strangway; 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2019), January 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1804-1811. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33011804
[paper | presentation]
Now superseded by the AIJ version noted above (April 2024).
Heuristic Voting as Ordinal Dominance Strategies: Omer Lev, Reshef Meir, Svetlana Obraztsova and Maria Polukarov; 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2019), January 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2077-2084. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012077
[paper | presentation]
"Reverse Gerrymandering": Manipulation in Multi-Group Decision Making: Omer Lev and Yoad Lewenberg; 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2019), January 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2069-2076. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012069
[paper]
Big City vs. the Great Outdoors: Voter Distribution and How it Affects Gerrymandering: Allan Borodin, Omer Lev, Nisarg Shah and Tyrone Strangway; 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2018), July 2018, Stockholm, Sweden, 98-104. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2018/14
[paper | presentation]
Socially Motivated Partial Cooperation in Multi-agent Local Search: Tal Ze’evi, Roie Zivan and Omer Lev; 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2018), July 2018, Stockholm, Sweden, 583-589. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2018/81
[paper]
Seasonal Goods and Spoiled Milk: Pricing for a Limited Shelf-Life: Atiyeh Ashari Ghomi, Allan Borodin and Omer Lev; 17th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2018), July 2018, Stockholm, Sweden, 901-909.
[paper]
Convergence and Quality of Iterative Voting Under Non-Scoring Rules: Aaron Koolyk, Tyrone Strangway, Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2017), August 2017, Melbourne, Australia, 273-279. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2017/39
[paper]
Group Recommendations: Axioms, Impossibilities, and Random Walks: Omer Lev and Moshe Tennenholtz; 16th conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK 2017), July 2017, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 382-397. https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.251.28
[paper | presentation]
Distant Truth: Bias Under Vote Distortion Cost: Svetlana Obraztsova, Omer Lev, Evangelos Markakis, Zinovi Rabinovich and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 16th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2017), May 2017, São Paulo, Brazil, 885-892.
[paper]
Divide and Conquer: Using Geographic Manipulation to Win District-Based Elections: Yoad Lewenberg, Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 16th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2017), May 2017, São Paulo, Brazil, 624-632.
[paper]
Also presented at the COMSOC 2016 workshop, Toulouse, France.
Agent Failures in All-Pay Auctions: Yoad Lewenberg, Omer Lev, Yoram Bachrach and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; IEEE Intelligent Systems 32(1):8-16, January-February 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2017.2
[paper | ArXiv]
Convergence of Iterative Scoring Rules: Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) 57:573-591, December 2016. https://doi.org/10.1613/jair.5187
[paper]
Misrepresentation in District Voting: Yoram Bachrach, Omer Lev, Yoad Lewenberg and Yair Zick; 25th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2016), July 2016, New York City, New York, 81-87.
[paper | presentation]
Also presented at the COMSOC 2016 workshop, Toulouse, France.
Budgetary Effects on Pricing Equilibrium in Online Markets: Allan Borodin, Omer Lev and Tyrone Strangway; 15th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2016), May 2016, Singapore, 95-103.
[paper | ArXiv]
Strategyproof Peer Selection: Mechanisms, Analyses, and Experiments: Haris Aziz, Omer Lev, Nicholas Mattei, Jeffrey S. Rosenschein and Toby Walsh; 30th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2016), February 2016, Phoenix, Arizona, 397-403.
[paper]
Also presented at SCW 2016 in Lund, Sweden. [presentation]
Now superseded by the AIJ version noted above (October 2019).
Agent Modeling of Human Interaction: Stability, Dynamics and Cooperation
PhD. thesis submitted to the Senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, August 2015. [thesis]
Truth-Bias in Binary Scoring Rules: Svetlana Obraztsova, Omer Lev, Evangelos Markakis, Zinovi Rabinovich and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 4th International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory (ADT 2015), September 2015, Lexington, Kentucky, 451-468. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23114-3_27
[paper | presentation]
How Robust is the Wisdom of the Crowds?: Noga Alon, Michal Feldman, Omer Lev and Moshe Tennenholtz; 24th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2015), July 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2055-2061.
[paper | presentation]
Impartial Peer Review: David Kurokawa, Omer Lev, Jamie Morgenstern and Ariel D. Procaccia; 24th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2015), July 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 582-588.
[paper]
An Axiomatic Approach to Routing: Omer Lev, Moshe Tennenholtz and Aviv Zohar; 15th conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK 2015), June 2015, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 173-180. https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.215.14
[paper | presentation]
The Pricing War Continues: On Competitive Multi-Item Pricing: Omer Lev, Joel Oren, Craig Boutilier and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2015), January 2015, Austin, Texas, 972-978.
[paper | ArXiv]
Analysis of Equilibria in Iterative Voting Schemes: Zinovi Rabinovich, Svetlana Obraztsova, Omer Lev, Evangelos Markakis and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2015), January 2015, Austin, Texas, 1007-1013.
[paper]
A previous version was presented at EXPLORE 2014, in Paris, France, and at COMSOC 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. [paper | presentation]
A Local-Dominance Theory of Voting Equilibria: Reshef Meir, Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 15th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC 2014), June 2014, Palo Alto, California, 313-330. https://doi.org/10.1145/2600057.2602860
[paper | ArXiv]
Also presented at SCW 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts and at COMSOC 2014, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Cooperative Weakest Link Games: Yoram Bachrach, Omer Lev, Shachar Lovett, Jeffrey S. Rosenschein and Morteza Zadimoghaddam; 13th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2014), May 2014, Paris, France, 589-596.
[paper | presentation]
A previous version was presented at the Fourth Workshop on Cooperative Games in Multiagent Systems (CoopMAS 2013), May 2013, St. Paul, Minnesota. [paper | presentation]
Agent Failures in All-Pay Auctions: Yoad Lewenberg, Omer Lev, Yoram Bachrach and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2013), August 2013, Beijing, China, 241-247.
[paper]
Now superseded by the IEEE Intelligent Systems version noted above (January-February 2017).
Mergers and Collusion in All-Pay Auctions and Crowdsourcing Contests: Omer Lev, Maria Polukarov, Yoram Bachrach and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 12th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2013), May 2013, St. Paul, Minnesota, 675-682.
[paper | presentation]
Empirical Aspects of Plurality Election Equilibria: David R.M. Thompson, Omer Lev, Kevin Leyton-Brown and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 12th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2013), May 2013, St. Paul, Minnesota, 391-398.
[paper]
Also presented at the COMSOC 2012 workshop, Kraków, Poland. [paper | presentation]
Convergence of Iterative Voting: Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 11th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2012), June 2012, Valencia, Spain, 611-618.
[paper | presentaion]
Now superseded by the JAIR version noted above (December 2016).
An Algorithm for the Coalitional Manipulation Problem under Maximin: Michael Zuckerman, Omer Lev and Jeffrey S. Rosenschein; 10th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2011), May 2011, Taipei, Taiwan, 845-852.
[paper]
A previous version appeared in COMSOC 2010. [paper]
Aso presented at BISFAI (Bar-Ilan Symposium on Foundations of Artificial Intelligence) 2011. [presentation]
A Two-Dimensional Problem of Revenue Maximization: Omer Lev; Journal of Mathematical Economics, volume 47 (6), 718-727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmateco.2011.08.007
[paper]
Previously appeared as Center of Rationality Discussion Paper #542. [paper]
On the Relative Succinctness of Nondeterministic Büchi and co-Büchi Word Automata: Benjamin Aminof, Orna Kupferman and Omer Lev; 15th International Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (LPAR 2008), November 2008, Qatar, 183-197. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89439-1_14
[paper]

Email: omerlev@bgu.ac.il

Office: Room 248, Building 16, Ben-Gurion University. [map]

Address:

Omer Lev
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management,
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
P.O. 653, Beersheba 8410501
Israel

In July 2020 I gave a talk at the COMSOC Video Seminar on some recent work on spatial models (including this IJCAI 2020 paper). [video (talk starts around 46:20)]

PhD. Thesis: Agent Modeling of Human Interaction: Stability, Dynamics and Cooperation . [thesis]

In November 2012 I gave a talk at Microsoft Research UK on some of my work (up to then). [video]

Screensaver for MacOS that displays the top 10 headlines from a given RSS feed (default is BBC World). Not guaranteed to work with all feeds. [news.saver.zip]

iOS app of a Siddur (Jewish prayer book), which contains various features, attempting to use the computational environment for a better siddur. [SiddurApp]

Mac OS X Dashboard widget for Ha'aretz . This hasn't been updated in years, and no guarantee that it will continue to work. [hnews.zip]