Izzy Grosof's portrait - A nonbinary person with their head and shoulders visible, wearing a white scoop-necked top with large purple flowers.

I am an assistant professor at Northwestern University, in the Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS) Department.

I research stochastic queueing theory, with a focus on scheduling and resource allocation, and optimal multiserver policies in particular.

I am advising two wonderful PhD students:

I am leading an exciting independent study:

I am advising an excellent undergraduate researcher:

  • Jay Kowalik

If you are a first-year PhD student at Northwestern, a prospective student, or thinking of applying, feel free to reach out to me, I am looking to recruit students with a strong mathematical background. If you’re an undergraduate student at Northwestern interested in doing research, you should also feel free to get in touch.

My name is Izzy Grosof, where Izzy is short for Isaac. I am nonbinary, and I use both they/them and she/her pronouns. Check out my introduction to my nonbinary gender for more info on my gender, my they/she Q&A for more info on my pronouns, or all of my gender-related posts.

Teaching:

  • IEMS 315: Stochastic Models. Mostly undergraduate course, mostly juniors and seniors. Covers modeling with Markov chains and Poisson processes, and a bit of queueing theory. Taught fall 2024, returning fall 2025!
  • IEMS 460-1: Stochastic Processes 1. Mostly graduate class, mostly first-year PhD students. A mathematically rigorous look at Markov chains and Poisson processes, and a bit of queueing theory. Taught winter 2025, returning winter 2026!
  • IEMS 464: Advanced Queueing Theory. Mostly graduate class, mix of years of PhD students. Exploring a variety of topics in queueing theory, from classical results to recent developments! More details to come as I decide what to put in the class. Coming winter 2026!

I have received the ACM SIGMETRICS 2023 Doctoral Dissertation Award, the INFORMS 2022 George Nicholson Award, the ACM SIGMETRICS 2021 Best Paper Award, the ACM SIGMETRICS 2019 Best Student Paper Award, and the IFIP Performance 2018 Best Student Paper Award. I was the 2023 Tennenbaum Postdoctoral Fellow and a 2023 Siebel Scholar.

In 2023-24, I was a postdoc with Siva Theja Maguluri at Georgia Tech and with R. Srikant at UIUC. I received my PhD from CMU in the summer of 2023, where I was advised by Mor Harchol-Balter. Check out my thesis document which provides a guided tour of my PhD research, and is designed to be more approachable than diving into my papers directly.

Check out my publications, all of which you can download to read.

Check out my potential project ideas, which I’d be interested in advising a student to work on and/or interested in collaborating on.

Check out my blog.

Here’s an archive of my job market materials.

A good way to contact me is via my email at the bottom of the page, or via my Mastodon account, @[email protected].

Here’s some art I made, and check out many more of my pieces.

Art