Igor Markov named a top Quora writer for fifth year in a row

Prof. Igor Markov has a wide ranging passion for knowledge and sharing – and it shows. Markov was recently named a top writer for 2018 on Quora, the question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by its community of users. This is the fifth straight year that he has been ranked as a top writer on the site.

Markov’s over 3800 answers on Quora have had over 41 million views. Among all Quora authors, he is the 31st most viewed author as of January 2018. Markov has answered questions on issues related to Eastern Europe, Russia, and international relations; academia, academic research, and graduate education; and computer science, algorithms, programming, and quantum computing. Along the way, he has gathered a following of over 71,000 readers.

According to Quora, its top writers are “a group of remarkable people with a talent for communicating with expertise, knowledge, authenticity, and empathy. Some people in the group are experts in specific fields, while others are simply great writers with a talent for describing the human condition and the world around us. Some are professional writers; most are not. All have contributed immensely to Quora and the Quora community.”

Prof. Markov has become rather well known by those who use Quora, thanks to his prolific posting. “To my surprise,” he said, “during my undergraduate advising appointments, students often mention that they follow me on Quora, and in some cases have since high school.”

Prof. Markov received his M.A. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA. Since joining the University of Michigan faculty in 2000, his research has included computers that make computers (software and hardware), secure hardware design, combinatorial optimization with applications to the design, verification and debugging of integrated circuits, as well as in quantum logic circuits. New algorithmic techniques developed by Prof. Markov have been implemented in open-source projects and industry tools, leading to order-of-magnitude improvements in practice.

Prof. Markov has coauthored five books and more than 200 refereed publications, some of which have been honored by best-paper awards. He is the recipient of a DAC Fellowship, an ACM SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty award, an ACM SIGDA Technical Leadership Award, an NSF CAREER award, an IBM Partnership Award, a Synplicity Inc. Faculty award, a Microsoft A. Richard Newton Breakthrough Research Award, and the inaugural IEEE CEDA Early Career Award. He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. He was also honored by the University of Michigan with the EECS Department Outstanding Achievement Award.