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SCS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
4:30 PM - Wean Hall 7500
00:00 AM Distinguished Donuts - Outside the Hall

Dr. Joseph F. Traub
Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor of Computer Science, Columbia University
and
Former Department Head, Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University

Computer Science at CMU: A Personal View

Computer Science at CMU has a glorious history. We've also had much fun along the way. I will share some of the stories you just might not have heard during the Immigration Course, such as:

  • Resolved: Computer Science should not grow much larger
  • How Black Friday got its name
  • Who fell down the Alan J. Perlis Memorial Shaft
  • The cheese cooperative
  • What was the two failure rule
  • The King's Gambit
  • What was the hottest research project
I am sure that some of the people who were here in the 70's will speak up to correct or amplify my memories and will add their own.

If time permits, I will switch topics and discuss scaling laws as one of the unifying principles of computer science, both temporally (past, present, and future) and across the various areas of computing and telecommunications.

Speaker Bio: Joe Traub was Head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University 1971-1979 and Founding Chairman of the Computer Science Department at Columbia University 1979-1989.

He served as Founding Chair of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academy of Sciences 1986-1992.

Traub is author or editor of ten books and some one hundred twenty journal articles. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Complexity and Associate Editor of Complexity. His numerous honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1985, the 1991 Emanuel R. Piore Gold Medal from IEEE, and the 1992 Distinguished Service Award, Computer Research Association. He has been Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and received a Distinguished Senior Scientist Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He was selected by the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome to present the 1993 Lezioni Lincee, a cycle of six lectures. Traub received the 1999 Mayor´s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology. The Award was presented by Mayor Rudy Giuliani at a ceremony in New York City. In May, 2001, he received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Florida Central University.

He has served as advisor or consultant to the senior management of numerous organizations including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Schlumberger, Stanford University, INRIA (Paris), Federal Judiciary Center, DARPA, NSF, and Lucent Technologies.

One focus of his current research is quantum computing.

Speaker Bio:

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 pm outside the auditorium.

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