Neha Makhija

Assistant Professor

Manning College of Computer and Information Sciences

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Email: nehamakhija{at}umass{dot}edu

Hi! I am a (brand-new) Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where I am a member of the DREAM lab.

My research interests are in the theory and practice of data management - how can we develop algorithms that extract knowledge from data efficiently? A common theme that emerges in data management research is that we can often leverage structure in data to solve hard problems efficiently. More specifically, I develop such techniques for problems related to query explanations, probabilistic/ uncertain data, and finding minimal representations of data - with the goal of discovering when we can solve these problems efficiently.

I completed my PhD in 2025 at the DATALab at Northeastern University, where I was advised by Wolfgang Gatterbauer.

Prospective Students

Current UMass Students: If you are interested in contributing to research projects related to algorithms and systems for data management, please reach out via email. Include (1) the words "Project@Dream" in the subject (2) information about your background / CV, (3) your research interests, (4) skills you possess that might be helpful for a research project, and (5) skills you'd like to develop.

Prospective UMass Students: I am looking for PhD students to join my research group starting Fall 2026. If you think your research interests are a good fit, please apply for the PhD program here. You may reach out to me via email (set a subject that includes the keyword "PhD@Dream") with any additional information you'd like to share or if you have specific questions regarding my research interests. However, please note that admission to the PhD program is determined by a committee, and not by any individual faculty.

Publications and Preprints

Reverse Query Optimization

Neha Makhija

PhD Thesis, 2025

[PDF]

Is Integer Linear Programming All You Need for Deletion Propagation? A Unified and Practical Approach for Generalized Deletion Propagation

Neha Makhija, Wolfgang Gatterbauer

To appear VLDB 2025

[PVLDB Paper] | [ArXiv Preprint] | [OSF Repository with Code]

Resilience for Regular Path Queries: Towards a Complexity Classification

Antoine Amarilli, Wolfgang Gatterbauer, Neha Makhija, Mikaël Monet

PODS 2025

[ACM PACMMOD Paper] | [ArXiv Preprint] | [Code: Computational Verification of Hardness Gadgets]

A Unified Approach for Resilience and Causal Responsibility with Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and LP Relaxations

Neha Makhija, Wolfgang Gatterbauer

SIGMOD 2024

[ACM PACMMOD Paper] | [arXiv (long version)] | [Project Webpage]

Presentation @ SIGMOD 2024 [Slides (June 2024)]

Presentation @ Simons Institute, Nov 2023 [Video (28 min)] | [slides (Nov 2023)]

Minimally Factorizing the Provenance of Self-join Free Conjunctive Queries

Neha Makhija, Wolfgang Gatterbauer

PODS 2024

[ACM PACMMOD Paper] | [arXiv (long version)]

Presentation @ PODS 2024 [Slides (June 2024)]

Discovering Dichotomies for Problems in Database Theory

Neha Makhija

VLDB PhD Workshop 2023

[arXiv]

Loch Prospector: Metadata Visualization for Lakes of Open Data

Neha Makhija, Mansi Jain, Nikolaos Tziavelis, Laura Di Rocco, Sara Di Bartolomeo, Cody Dunne

IEEE VIS 2020

[OSF Repository] | [Video (7 min)] | [Video Teaser (30s)] | [Project Webpage]