The Dorothea Wagner Lab

Dorothea Wagner’s lab studies algorithms and data structures for complex networks, with a strong focus on graph theory, shortest paths, route planning, and network optimization. The research asks how to compute fast and reliable solutions for large real-world systems such as transportation networks, ride sharing, battery-electric vehicles, public transit, and technical infrastructure like transmission grids and VLSI circuits. A major theme is designing exact or provably efficient algorithms that scale to very large graphs while remaining practical enough for real applications. The group also works on dynamic and time-dependent problems, where networks change over time and the algorithm must adapt efficiently. Students in the lab can expect a mix of theory, algorithm engineering, and experimental evaluation on realistic datasets. This is a good fit for students who enjoy discrete mathematics, optimization, and building elegant methods for transportation, logistics, and network analysis problems.