I work on storing data compactly while still being able to compute with it directly, and on the mathematical analysis of algorithms – pinning down exact constant factors and how running time depends on the structure of the input.

The most widely used outcome so far is Powersort, a merge policy that replaced Timsort’s inside CPython, and hence runs whenever sorting a list in Python.

Email: wild at informatik.uni-marburg.de or liverpool.ac.uk
full contact details, office and postal address

News

• Aug 2026 🌟 I am hiring a postdoc in algorithms and data structures
  on the EPSRC project Computing over Compressed Graph-Structured Data. Initially until December 2027, TV-H E13 (100%), no German required. Apply by 16 August or ask me anything.
• Nov 2025 Tamio-Vesa Nakajima joins the group as a postdoc.

Research

Recent papers:   

• Virtual-Memory PowerSort  ⋅  arXiv
• Partition-based Simple Heaps  ⋅  LATIN 2026
• Rooting Out Entropy: Optimal Tree Extraction for Ultra-Succinct Graphs  ⋅  arXiv
• Space-Efficient Hierholzer: Eulerian Cycles in O(m) Time and O(n) Space  ⋅  SOSA 2026
• all publications

Research interests:

• Space-efficient data structures, computing over compressed data
• Analysis of algorithms, algorithm science, adaptive algorithms
• Sorting algorithms  ⋅  Powersort  ⋅  blog

Projects:

• Computing over Compressed Graph-Structured Data  (EPSRC)

Group:

• Tamio-Vesa Nakajima — postdoc, since November 2025
• Ziad Ismaili Alaoui — PhD student, since October 2024

former group members and their theses

Teaching

Current modules: 

• CS 210 Algorithms and Data Structures (Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen)
• CS 650 Advanced Data Structures

teaching archive  ⋅  book  ⋅  TCSCS  ⋅  YouTube channel

More on the About page.