François Clément

Email: fclement@uw.edu

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington. I did my PhD in the Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris 6 (LIP6), where I was co-supervised by Dr Carola Doerr and Dr Luís Paquete. I received the Prix de Thèse EDITE 2025, prize for the best thesis in the CS doctoral school in Paris in 2025. My work is mostly focused on the construction of uniformly distributed point sets, used for example in numerical integration or computer vision. I am broadly interested in Optimization and Combinatorics.

CV

     

Publications

Preprints

  1. On the optimization of discrepancy measures, with N. Kirk, A. B. Owen and T. K. Rusch, arxiv.
  2. Monotone Paths on Acyclic 3-Regular Graphs, with Dan Guyer, arxiv.
  3. Regular Structures in Kronecker Permutations, arxiv.
  4. Approximately Jumping Towards the Origin with A. Albors, S. Kiami, B. Sodt, D. Yifan and T. Zang, arxiv.
  5. Outperforming the Best 1D Low-Discrepancy Constructions with a Greedy Algorithm, arxiv.

Published

  1. On the largest singular vector of the Redheffer matrix, with S. Steinerberger
    Linear Algebra and its Applications, volume 725, 2025, p96-114, published, arxiv.
  2. Failure of Orthogonality of Rounded Fourier Bases, with S. Steinerberger
    Indagationes Mathematicae, 2025, published, arxiv.
  3. Small gaps in the Ulam sequence, with S. Steinerberger
    Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie Scientifique - Mathématiques, volume 363, 2025, p941-949, published.
  4. Searching permutations for constructing uniformly distributed point sets, with C. Doerr, K. Klamroth and L. Paquete
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 122 (14), 2025, published, longer version on arxiv.
  5. Constructing Optimal L∞ point sets, with C. Doerr, K. Klamroth, L. Paquete
    Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society Series B, 12, 2025, p78-90, published, longer version on arxiv.
  6. Heuristic Approaches to Obtain Low-Discrepancy Point Sets via Subset Selection, with C. Doerr and L. Paquete
    Journal of Complexity, 83, 101852, 2024, published, arxiv.
  7. Computing Star Discrepancies with Numerical Black-Box Optimization Algorithms, with D. Vermetten, J. de Nobel, A.D. Jesus, C. Doerr and L. Paquete
    Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2023, p1330-1338, published, arxiv.
  8. Partitions for Stratified Sampling, with N. Kirk and F. Pausinger
    Monte Carlo Methods and Applications, published, arxiv.
  9. Star discrepancy subset selection: Problem formulation and efficient approaches for low dimensions, with C. Doerr and L. Paquete
    Journal of Complexity, Vol 70, 101645, 2022, published, arxiv.
  10. On the two-parameter Erdos-Falconer distance problem in finite fields, with H. Nassajian Mojarrad, D. Hiep Pham and C. Shen
    Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society, 1-5, 2022, published, arxiv.
  11. Distribution of Distances in Five Dimensions and Related Problems, with T. Pham
    SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Vol 36, 3, p2271-2281, 2022, published, arxiv.

Student Supervision

  1. Fall 2025: Undergraduate research project on combinatorial game theory.
  2. Spring 2025: Undergraduate research project on minimizing the L2 discrepancy via gradient descent with W. Lee C. Smidt, C. Sodt, X. Zhang. Preprint upcoming!
  3. Fall 2024: Undergraduate research project on discrete random walks with A. Albors, S. Kiami, B. Sodt, D. Yifan, see above for preprint.
  4. Fall 2024: Rabea Freese, Master Thesis. Co-supervision with Kathrin Klamroth, University of Wuppertal. Topic: Multi-objective optimization for discrepancies.
  5. Summer 2024: Deyao Chen, Bachelor student from the University of Saint-Andrews, project on algorithms for the L∞ star discrepancy and L2 subset selection. Preprint upcoming!

Teaching

University of Washington

  1. Spring 2026: MATH381 Discrete Mathematical Modeling
  2. Winter 2026: MATH407 Linear Optimization
  3. Fall 2025: MATH407 Linear Optimization
  4. Spring 2025: MATH407 Linear Optimization
  5. Spring 2025: MATH381 Discrete Mathematical Modeling
  6. Winter 2025: MATH381 Discrete Mathematical Modeling Section A
  7. Winter 2025: MATH381 Discrete Mathematical Modeling Section B

Sorbonne Université

  1. 2023 Fall semester: LU3IN003 Algorithms 2: TD
  2. 2023 Spring semester: LU2IN003 Algorithms 1: TD
  3. 2022 Fall semester: LU3IN003 Algorithms 2: TD
  4. 2022 Fall semester: LU2IN005 Discrete Mathematics: TME
  5. 2022 Spring semester: LU2IN003 Algorithms 1: TD
  6. 2021 Fall semester: LU2IN005 Discrete Mathematics: TME
  7. 2021 Fall semester: LU2IN005 Discrete Mathematics: TME
  8. 2021 Fall semester: LU1IN001 Introduction to programming: TME

Other

I have also created and organized the LIP6 Operations Research Seminar in 2024, a Special Session at MCMC 2025 (Chicago) and a Minisymposium at SIAM PNW 2025. Some recent slides from MCM 2025 and my PhD Defense.
You can find my PhD Thesis here.

I love hiking! While in France, I have hiked in the Pyrénées from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean on the GR10 over multiple summers, as well as many day hikes in the Alps and Britanny. With the Rockies so close to Seattle, I’ve had the opportunity this summer to do Section J of the Pacific Crest trail and the Enchantments (see the lovely Crystal Lake below!).

drawing