Igor L. Markov

Igor Leonidovich Markov (Ukrainian: Ігор Леонідович Марков; born in 1973 in Kyiv, Ukraine) is an American professor, computer scientist and engineer.

Markov is known for mathematical and algorithmic results in quantum computation, work on limits of computation, research on algorithms for optimizing integrated circuits and on electronic design automation, as well as artificial intelligence.

Additionally, Markov is a California non-profit executive responsible for aid to Ukraine worth tens of millions dollars.

Igor L. Markov has no known relation to the mathematician Andrey Markov.

From the early 2000s through 2018 he was a professor at University of Michigan, where he supervised doctoral dissertations and degrees of 12 students in Electrical engineering and Computer science.

He worked as a principal engineer at Synopsys during a sabbatical leave.

Markov obtained an M.A. degree in mathematics and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Computer Science from UCLA in 2001.

ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation honored Markov with an Outstanding New Faculty Award in 2004.

Markov was the 2009 recipient of IEEE CEDA Ernest S. Kuh Early Career Award "for outstanding contributions to algorithms, methodologies and software for the physical design of integrated circuits."

Markov became ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2011.

In 2013-2014 he was a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Markov worked at Google on Search and Information Retrieval,

and at Meta on Machine Learning platforms.

Markov is a member of the Board of Directors of Nova Ukraine, a California 501(c)(3) charity organization that provides humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

At Nova Ukraine, Markov leads government and media relations, as well as advocacy efforts.

Markov curated publicity efforts, established and curated large medical and evacuation projects, and contributed to fundraising.

In 2013 he was named an IEEE fellow "for contributions to optimization methods in electronic design automation".

Markov's peer-reviewed scholarly work was recognized with five best-paper awards, including four at major conferences and a journal in the field of electronic design automation, and one in theoretical computer science:

Markov co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications in journals and archival conference proceedings, and Google Scholar reported over 19,000 citations of his publications as of October 2023.

In a 2014 Nature article, Markov surveyed known limits to computation, pointing out that many of them are fairly lose and do not restrict near-term technologies.

When practical technologies encounter serious limits, understanding these limits can lead to workarounds.

More often,

what is practically achievable depends on technology-specific engineering limitations.

Markov co-edited the two-volume Electronic Design Automation handbook published in second edition by Taylor & Francis in 2016.

He also co-authored five scholarly books published by Springer, among them are two textbooks:

Markov's other books cover uncertainty in logic circuits, dealing with functional design errors in digital circuits, and physical synthesis of integrated circuits.

Markov’s contributions include results on quantum circuit synthesis (creating circuits from specifications) and simulation of quantum circuits on conventional computers (obtaining the output of a quantum computer without a quantum computer).

Markov's Capo placer provided a baseline for comparisons used in the placement literature.

The placer was commercialized and used to design industry chips.

Markov's contributions include algorithms, methodologies and software for

Markov was awarded a Top Writer status on Quora in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014, he has over 80,000 followers.

His contributions were republished by Huffington Post, Slate, and Forbes.

Markov is a moderator for the cs.ET (Emerging Technologies in Computing and Communications) subject area on arXiv.