Jason Hartline is a professor of computer science at Northwestern University, where he studies the design and analysis of economic, legal, and AI systems through the lens of theoretical computer science. His research emphasises approximation as a unifying principle: rather than assuming fully optimal behaviour in complex environments, he develops frameworks showing that simple and natural mechanisms can achieve approximately optimal outcomes. This perspective has had a significant impact on auction theory and mechanism design and forms the foundation of his graduate-level textbook, Mechanism Design and Approximation, currently under preparation.

Hartline received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Washington under the supervision of Anna Karlin. He subsequently held postdoctoral and research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research in Silicon Valley. He joined Northwestern University in 2008 and has since held visiting and sabbatical appointments at Harvard University, Microsoft Research New England, and Stanford University. He is the director of Northwestern’s Online Markets Lab, a co-founder of the Virtual Chair conference platform, and previously served as a founding co-director of the Institute for Data, Econometrics, Algorithms, and Learning.