Differential Privacy and Learning

CS 839 · Spring 2026 · UW–Madison

Schedule

Tu/Th · 1:00–2:15 PM · Morgridge Hall 6618
Date Topic Lecture Notes Further Reading Homework
Fundamentals
Jan 20 1: Provable Privacy: Why and How slides handwritten typeset
Jan 22 2: Privacy Basics I handwritten typeset
Jan 27 3: Privacy Basics II handwritten typeset HW1 (due 2/3)
Jan 29 4: Differentially Private Gradient Descent handwritten typeset
Feb 3 5: Linear Queries handwritten typeset DPCourse, Lec 7
Feb 5 6: Factorization for Linear Queries handwritten typeset DPCourse, Lec 13
Feb 10 7: Exponential Mechanism and Inverse Sensitivity handwritten typeset
Feb 12 8: Beating Global Sensitivity handwritten typeset HW2 v2 (due 3/3)
Feb 17 9: Propose-Test-Release and Mean Estimation handwritten
Optimization and Machine Learning
Feb 19 10: Flavors of DP (zCDP) handwritten typeset Steinke20
Feb 24 11: Hypothesis Testing and DP handwritten typeset Python notebook DRS19
Feb 26 12: zCDP, Part 2 handwritten typeset Steinke20
Mar 3 13: Convergence of DP-GD handwritten typeset SSTT20 HW2 due
Mar 5 14: Convergence of DP-GD, Part 2 SSTT20
Mar 10 15: Privacy Amplification handwritten Steinke20 FMT21 AT22
Mar 12 16: DP-FTRL and Correlated Noise handwritten typeset PUC+25 KMS+21
Multivariate Statistics
March 17 17: Subsample-and-Aggregate; FriendlyCore handwritten typeset TCKMS21
March 19 18: FriendlyCore for Gaussian Mean Estimation handwritten TCKMS21
March 24 19: StableCovariance handwritten BHS23
Mar 26 20: The Robustness-to-Privacy Transformation slides typeset GH22, AUZ23
HKMN23
(Spring Break)
Apr 7 21: Packing Lower Bounds
Apr 9 22: Fingerprinting Lower Bounds typeset
Advanced Topics
Apr 14 23: Lower Bounds for Interior Point handwritten BNSV15
Apr 16 24: Interior Point and PAC Learning handwritten
Apr 21 25: Privacy Wrappers
Project Presentations
Apr 23 Student Presentations
Apr 28 Student Presentations
Apr 30 Student Presentations