Nikhil Bansal is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai for his B. Tech. degree, and received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He got fascinated by algorithms after taking an undergraduate class by Ajit A. Diwan, and has worked on various algorithmic questions since then. During his free time, he enjoys reading, hiking and doing Yoga.