Or Zamir
About Me
I am an Assistant Professor ("Senior Lecturer") in the Blavatnik School of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University.
My fields of interest revolve around algorithms, data structures, combinatorics, graph theory, cryptography, and foundations of (provable) AI safety.
Before starting my current position, I was a member in the school of Math at the Institute for Advanced Study and an associate research scholar in the computer science department at Princeton University.
Prior to that, I graduated with a PhD from Tel Aviv University where I was privileged to have Haim Kaplan and Uri Zwick as my advisors.
My research group is supported by an ERC Starting Grant and grants from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the UK AI Security Institute (AISI), among other sources. I am currently recruiting M.Sc. and Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers; prospective applicants are welcome to contact me by email.
Publications and Papers
(dblp, scholar)
O. Zamir,
Linear Hashing is Not That Awesome,
2026.
O. Stern,
O. Zamir,
Enumerating Small Cycles,
2026.
O. Zamir,
k-Coloring is Faster than Computing the Chromatic Number,
2026.
O. Zamir,
Locality in Open Addressing Hash Tables,
2026.
R. Canetti,
S. Goldwasser,
O. Zamir,
Proofs of Ownership for Machine Learning Models,
2026.
V. Vaikuntanathan,
O. Zamir,
Undetectable Conversations Between AI Agents via Pseudorandom Noise-Resilient Key Exchange,
FOCS '26.
A. T. Kalai,
Y. T. Kalai,
O. Zamir,
Consensus Sampling for Safer Generative AI, 2026.
O. Zamir,
A Note on Non-Composability of Layerwise Approximate Verification for Neural Inference,
2026.
N. Green-Maimon,
O. Zamir,
Tight Bounds for Low-Error Frequency Moment Estimation and the Power of Multiple Passes, ICALP '26.
V. Vaikuntanathan,
O. Zamir,
Improving Algorithmic Efficiency using Cryptography,
SODA '26.
K. Efremenko,
O. Zamir,
Unbounded Error Correcting Codes,
SODA '26.
M. Braverman,
O. Zamir,
Optimality of Frequency Moment Estimation 
,
STOC '25.
X. Chen,
S. Nadimpalli,
T. Randolph,
R. A. Servedio,
O. Zamir,
Testing Sumsets is Hard,
ESA '25.
N. Alon,
O. Zamir,
Sumsets in the Hypercube,
SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, 2024.
O. Zamir,
Undetectable Steganography for Language Models 
,
Transactions on Machine Learning Research, 2024.
N. Alon,
M. Bucic,
L. Sauermann,
D. Zakharov,
O. Zamir,
Essentially tight bounds for rainbow cycles in proper edge-colourings,
Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 2024.
K. G. Larsen,
R. Pagh,
T. Pitassi,
O. Zamir,
Optimal Non-Adaptive Cell Probe Dictionaries and Hashing,
ICALP '24.
M. Christ,
S. Gunn,
O. Zamir,
Undetectable Watermarks for Language Models,
COLT '24
O. Zamir,
The Wrong Direction of Jensen’s Inequality Is Algorithmically Right,
ICALP '23.
O. Zamir,
Algorithmic Applications of Hypergraph and Partition Containers ,
STOC '23.
S. Goldwasser,
M. P. Kim,
V. Vaikuntanathan,
O. Zamir,
Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models 
,
FOCS '22.
A. Abboud,
K. Bringmann,
S. Khoury,
O. Zamir,
Hardness of Approximation in P via Short Cycle Removal: Cycle Detection, Distance Oracles, and Beyond ,
STOC '22.
O. Zamir,
Faster algorithm for Unique (k,2)-CSP,
ESA '22.
Robert E. Tarjan,
H. Kaplan,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Simulating a stack using queues,
SODA '22.
M. Braverman,
S. Garg,
O. Zamir,
Tight Space Complexity of the Coin Problem ,
FOCS '21.
S. Narayanan,
S. Silwal,
P. Indyk,
O. Zamir,
Randomized Dimensionality Reduction for Facility Location and Single-Linkage Clustering,
ICML '21.
O. Zamir,
Breaking the 2^n barrier for 5-coloring and 6-coloring ,
ICALP '21 (
Best Student Paper).
J. Holm,
V. King,
M. Thorup,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Random k-out subgraph leaves only (n/k) inter-component edges ,
FOCS '19.
M. Thorup,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Dynamic Ordered Sets with Approximate Queries, Approximate Heaps and Soft Heaps,
ICALP '19.
T. Dueholm Hansen,
H. Kaplan,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Faster k-SAT algorithms using biased-PPSZ,
STOC '19.
H. Kaplan,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
A sort of an adversary,
SODA '19.
H. Kaplan,
L. Kozma,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Selection from heaps, row-sorted matrices and X+Y using soft heaps,
SOSA '19.
S. Chechik,
H. Kaplan,
M. Thorup,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
Bottleneck Paths and Trees and Deterministic Graphical Games,
STACS '16.
A. Abboud,
A. Backurs,
T. Dueholm Hansen,
V. Vassilevska Williams,
O. Zamir,
Subtree Isomorphism Revisited,
SODA '16
(Invited to special issue).
K. Solovey,
J. Yu,
O. Zamir,
D. Halperin,
Motion Planning for Unlabeled Discs with Optimality Guarantees,
RSS '15.
H. Kaplan,
O. Zamir,
U. Zwick,
The amortized cost of finding the minimum,
SODA '15.
M.Sc Thesis
Awards and Grants
2026:
ERC Starting Grant.
2026: UK AISI Grant.
2025: Israel's Ministry of Science Grant.
2025: Selected for the
TLV AI50 list of "50 of the most influential Israeli AI leaders".
2024: ISF Grant.
2023: Listed in Quanta Magazine's
"The Biggest Discoveries in Computer Science in 2023".
2023: The Blavatnik Grant.
2021:
The Blavatnik Prize, Israel.
2021:
Best Student Paper, ICALP '21.
2020: Recipient of
The Rothschild Fellowship.
2019:
The Deutsch Prize, Tel Aviv University.
2016:
The Celia and Marcos Maus Annual Prize, Tel Aviv University.
2016: Dean's list, Tel Aviv University.
2015: The Blavatnik School of Computer Science scholarship for excellence, Tel Aviv University.
2015: The "Beno Arbel Program for Gifted Young Students in Mathematics" award for excellent accomplishments.
2015:
"Final" scholarship for excellent students.
2015: Dean's list, Tel Aviv University.
2015:
Rector's award for excellence, Tel Aviv University.
2014: The Blavatnik School of Computer Science award for excellence, Tel Aviv University.
2014: Dean's list, Tel Aviv University.
2013:
Rector's award for excellence, Tel Aviv University.
CV
2023-:
Assistant Professor / "Senior Lecturer", School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University.
2022-2023:
Associate Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science, Princeton University.
2022-2023:
Visitor, School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study.
2022-2023:
Visitor, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University.
2021-2022:
Visitor, Department of Computer Science, Princeton University.
2021-2022:
Member, School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study.
2020-2021:
Collaboration Scientist,
Algorithms and Geometry, The Simons Foundation.
October 2018 - January 2019:
Visiting BARC in Copenhagen.
2016-2019: Serving in the IDF.
2016-2021:
Computer Science PhD, Tel Aviv University.
2013-2016:
Computer Science M.Sc, Tel Aviv University.
Summa Cum Laude (
GPA: 100 )
2012: Joined the Computer Science dept. excellence program, Tel Aviv University.
2012-2015:
Computer Science and Mathematics B.Sc, Tel Aviv University.
Summa Cum Laude (
GPA: Mathematics
100.00, Computer Science
99.46 )
Teaching
2025/26 Spring Semester: Lecturer, "Combinatorial Methods in Algorithms" (students-written
summary).
2025/26 Spring Semester: Lecturer,
"Seminar on Foundations of Provable AI Security".
2025/26 Fall Semester: Lecturer, "Data Structures".
2024/25 Spring Semester: Lecturer,
"Combinatorial Methods in Algorithms".
2024/25 Fall Semester: Lecturer, "Data Structures".
2020:
Rector's award for excellence in teaching, Tel Aviv University.
2019/20 Spring Semester: Lecturer, "Data Structures".
2019/20 Fall Semester: Teaching Assistant, "Data Structures".
E-Mail address:
orzamir@tau.ac.il
Office: Checkpoint Building 254, Tel Aviv University.