Chandana
Sasidharan

I think about graphs, computational complexity, and what it means to build knowledge, whether in a Turing machine or a classroom.

About

I am doing my MS by Research at IIT Palakkad, advised by Dr. Krishnamoorthy Dinesh. During this programme, I spent the better part of my time doing mental gynmanstics over where the complexity of reachability problems for restricted graphs lies, especially in the logspace setting.

Before this, I studied public policy at IIT Bombay, advised by Dr. Prabhir Vishnu Poruthiyil, with a focus on education policy, media literacy and political discourse. I worked on comparative study of media literacy curricula across Finland, Ukraine, and Kerala, tracing learning objectives, pedagogical choices, and approaches to misinformation. I am drawn to questions at both ends of the spectrum, the rigorous formalism of complexity theory and the craft of policies that shape how people learn and think.

Education

2023 - 2026
MS by Research - Theoretical Computer Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Palakkad
Complexity Theory | Algorithms | | Graph Theory | Deep Learning
2020 - 2022
Masters in Public Policy
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
Education Policy | Media Literacy | Discourse Analysis
CPI 8.72 / 10
2015 - 2019
B.Tech - Computer Science & Engineering
Federal Institute of Science and Technology, Angamaly
Soft Computing | Machine Learning | Artificial Intelligence
CPI 8.32 / 10

Research Interests

Accepted Papers

Space Complexity of Reachability in Simple Path Graphs
MFCS 2026 (51st International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science), Paris, France | Aug 24-28, 2026
Joint work with Krishnamoorthy Dinesh. [TBA: link to the paper/arXiv]

Talks

Polynomial-Time Recognition Algorithm for Perfect Graphs
IIT Palakkad | [Date TBA]
Algorithm by Maria Chudnovsky, Gérard Cornuéjols, Xinming Liu, Paul Seymour, and Kristina Vušković; later extended by Maria Chudnovsky, Alex D. Scott, Paul D. Seymour, and Sophie Theresa Spirkl.
View slides (PDF)

Newspaper Article

Need for Digital Media Literacy in Schools
Hindustan Times (Opinion), Feb 24, 2022
Op-ed on digital media literacy programmes in education policies. Read on Hindustan Times

Other Curiosities

Things I think about when I'm not thinking about complexity theory or pedagogy.

🤖 Machine Learning 🏋️ Fitness & Nutrition

Contact