Abstract

What is computer science? Most people will respond that it is the set of knowledge and tools underlying the IT revolution. This talk will argue that computer science also represents a new way to think about a host of scientific problems. This talk will give examples new and old, including some recent work that uses computer science ideas to explain certain aspects of the recent meltdown in derivative markets.

Such examples suggest new possibilities about what computer science ideas should be taught to students, whether or not they are majoring in computer science.

Bio of the Speaker

Career

July'03– Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University.

Feb.'99–June'03 Associate Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University.

Sept.'94–Jan.'99 Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University.

Other appointments Visiting Professor, Weizmann Institute (Feb'07–June'07) Visiting researcher,

Microsoft Research (Sept'06–Jan'07) Visiting Associate Professor, UC Berkeley (Sept'01–June'02).

Education

Ph.D., Computer Science, UC Berkeley, 1994. Advisor: U.V. Vazirani

S.B., Math with CS, MIT, 1990.

Professional Activities and Honors

·        Founding director and lead PI, Center for Computational Intractability, 2008.

SIGACT Committee for Advancement of Theoretical CS. Member 2005-07, Chair since Aug'07.

Graduate mentoring award from Princeton University, 2005. (One of four winners.)

Best paper award (cowinner), ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2004.

Invited speaker, International Symposium on Math Programming 2003.

Distinguished Alumnus Award from UC Berkeley Computer Science Dept., 2003.

Invited speaker, International Congress of Mathematicians, 2002.

EATCS-SIGACT G¨odel prize (cowinner), 2001.

Codirector of DIMACS, 2000-2001 (1 term)

Invited speaker, ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1998.

David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship, 1997–2002.

Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, 1996.

NSF CAREER Award for junior faculty, 1995.

ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (cowinner), 1995.

Ranked first in India, IIT Joint Entrance Exam, 1986.

Member of editorial board, Computational Complexity, Theory of Computing, SIAM J. Disc. Math, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Information and Computation,Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity.

Program Chair for APPROX 2003 and IEEE FOCS 2006. Program committee member for: ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1996, International Computing and Combinatorics Conference, 1997, IEEE Foundations of Computer Science, 2000, ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2003.

Invited speaker at Logic Colloquium'94, McGill Workshop on Complexity Theory,1996, CUNY Logic Day 1996, Dimacs Workshop on Networks Design, 1997, NYU Geometry Day, 1997, Lecturer at IAS-Park City Summer school in Complexity Theory, 2000, Bay Area Theory Day 2001, Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical CS 2001, Dimacs workshop on Geometric Algorithms 2003, Foundations of Computation Theory 2003, NYU/Columbia Theory Day, 2004.