Early Theory
“Everything is interesting”
Susan Graham is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. I have known Graham for decades—and am happy to report she is still active.
She was a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) during the Obama Administration. She served alongside Bill Press of Austin, who is still on PCAST—alongside Terry Tao among names we know.
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Ingrid Daubechies: Prizes and Art
Ingrid Daubechies won the 2023 Wolf Prize in Mathematics last February. She is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University.
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| Crop from 2021 New York Times profile by Siobhan Roberts, photo by Jeremy Lange |
Today, Mother’s Day in the US, we congratulate her on this award and note some non-theoretical applications of her work.
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A TTIC Talk
Isbell Accepts
Charles Isbell was my colleague at Georgia Tech for a long time. He has some news, which I am glad to convey in the words of the UW Madison Chancellor, Jennifer Mnookin:
I am delighted to share the terrific news that Dr. Charles Lee Isbell Jr., the John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, has accepted my offer to become our next provost at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He will begin his work with us on August 1.
Isbell will be the next provost:
A provost is a senior academic administrator. At many institutions of higher education, they are the chief academic officer, a role that may be combined with being deputy to the chief executive officer. They may also be the chief executive officer of a university, of a branch campus of a university, or of a college within a university.
See this for more details about the hiring of Isbell.
Chart
Here is the level under Chancellor of the org chart for UW Madison, with Charles’s place in italics:
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration
Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs
Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Vice Chancellor for University Relations
Chief Diversity Officer and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion
Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs and Dean, School of Medicine and Public Health
Open Problems
Congrads Charles—wonderful you are going to Madison. That is a wonderful place—I spent many happy days being a visitor there over the years. He is following UW-Madison Provost John Scholz who was named as the new president of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon.
Dark Silicon
Ivan Sutherland played a key role in foundational computer technologies back in the 1970s. He won most if not all the major awards—the Turing Award and the Kyoto Prize in particular.
Now he sees a path for America to claim the mantle in “micro” chips. Check out this recent New York Times article on his view.
Some Rice News
Lydia Kavraki is the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science at Rice University. She is also professor of Bioengineering, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rice. She is the current Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice.
Today we congratulate her on being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).
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An Award For Ellen Zegura
Ellen Zegura was just honored with the Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award. The Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award recognizes outstanding achievement in teaching, research, and service. It is the highest honor given to a Georgia Tech professor.
Created in 1984 by the Class of 1934 in observance of its 50th reunion, the award is presented to an active professor who has made significant, long-term contributions—contributions that have brought widespread recognition to the professor, to their school, and to the Institute. The GaTech story on Ellen has many delightful personal details touching all aspects of her vocation.
Two other people in our line have been so honored recently: Jim Foley from computing and Robin Thomas from mathematics. As a past Tech professor I knew both of them well. I’ve also known other past winners of this great award. Congrats to Ellen.
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Schoolbook Error/Discovery
Liam Squires is a fifth-grader at Virginia’s HM Pearson Elementary. He is now famous—after a story that is in print in today’s Sunday New York Times. Squires saw that the diagrams of igneous and sedimentary rocks had the wrong labels.
The book was a “Level 5” tome encompassing Earth Science. The book was approved by the school district back in 2015—but a diagram mistake had managed to creep through. Noticing the pictures of igneous and sedimentary rocks were miscaptioned, Squires told his teacher, who told the school, who then told Five Ponds Press. Who sent a wonderful personal letter back to Squires.
Anthony Picciano’s blog has further details of the story.
Open Problems
Let’s send Squires some “proofs” for checking? Would he catch that out of three references to the “Bell basis” in my textbook with Ken, one of them is incorrect (should be “Hadamard basis”)? How about the next P=NP proof?
ACM Prize to Yael Kalai
Plus evocations of the roles of complexity and verification in crypto and human relations
Yael Kalai has just been named the winner of the 2022 ACM Prize. She works at Microsoft Research.
Today we congratulate her, say a little about her work, and riff on some related and “unrelated” matters.
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Neil Jones, 1941–2023
Neil Jones, sad to relate, just passed away. He was Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen, which he joined on a permanent basis in 1982 after gaining tenure at Penn State and a full professorship at the University of Kansas.
Eric Allender wrote a post on Neil for Lance Fortnow’s and Bill Gasarch’s famous blog. We point to it, hopefully with their full approval, and add some supplementary remarks. Eric’s tribute leads with Jones’s work with Alan Selman characterizing logical spectra via languages in nondeterministic 
