Carnegie Mellon Announces Winners of 2008 Katayanagi Prizes in Computer Science --Awardees to Lecture on Campus at 3:15 April 10
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Anne Watzman
Apr 2, 2008, 9:59:12 AM4/2/08
to pittsburgh-sc...@googlegroups.com
Details on the winners and topics of their lectures follow this release
Contact: Anne Watzman For immediate release:
412-268-3830
aw...@andrew.cmu.edu
Byron Spice
412-268-9068
bsp...@cs.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon Announces Winners of
2008 Katayanagi Prizes in Computer Science
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University, in cooperation with the Tokyo University of Technology (TUT) in Tokyo, Japan, will award the second annual Katayanagi Prizes in Computer Science to two outstanding members of the world’s computer science community. The prizes have been endowed with a gift from Japanese entrepreneur and education advocate Mr. Koh Katayanagi, who founded TUT and several other technical institutions in Japan over the last 60 years.
The awards include the Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence and the Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize. The former is awarded to an established researcher with a record of outstanding, sustained achievement, while the latter honors someone recognized as an emerging research leader. The prizes carry an honorarium of $20,000 for the senior researcher and $10,000 for the junior. Awardees are chosen by a committee comprised of members of each institution.
Each award recipient will deliver a 45-minute lecture in 7500 Wean Hall on Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus beginning at 3:15 pm, April 10, and another at TUT in Tokyo on May 23.
This year’s Prize for Research Excellence goes to Christos Papadimitriou, the C. Lester Hogan Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley. The recipient of the Emerging Leadership Award is Erik D. Demaine, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor and associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Papatimitriou will speak on “"The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is Transforming the Sciences." The topic of Demaine’s talk is "Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms."
Papadimitriou is an internationally recognized expert on the theory of algorithms and complexity, and its applications to databases, optimization, artificial intelligence, networks and game theory. He is the author of five books, including “Computational Complexity,” one of the most widely used textbooks in the field of computational complexity theory, and “Turing,” a novel published by the MIT Press in 2003. The latter is described as a love triangle that frames the main story, a series of lessons on the history and future of thought delivered by a super-program named after the first computer scientist, Alan Turing. At Berkeley, Papadimitriou is also a member of a band made up of professors and graduate students called Lady X and the Positive Eigenvalues.
Demaine is a rising star in the area of theoretical computer science with interests in computational geometry, data structures, algorithms and combinatorics. A MacArthur Fellow, he is especially well known for his work in computational origami, the mathematics of paper folding. The elegant shapes he fashions with folded paper in pursuit of his theories are considered to be works of art. Several pieces are currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of an exhibit titled “Design and the Elastic Mind.”
“The Katayanagi Prizes continue to honor the best and brightest in the field of computer science,” said Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon. “Computer science plays a critical role everywhere in the world today, but its greatest researchers and practitioners often go unsung. Through our collaboration with the Tokyo University of Technology, and the vision and generosity of Mr. Koh Katayanagi, we are able to honor them.”
“I wish to thank the members of the Carnegie Mellon and TUT Katayanagi Prize selection committees for their endeavors and patience in accomplishing their hard duties,” said TUT President Hideo Aiso. “Both winners are internationally rcognized researchers who have made outstanding contributions to academic and industrial progress. I personally have become aware of very useful theories and algorithms through reading Dr. Papadimitriou’s textbooks, and I have been very much interested in Dr. Demaine’s research in the emerging field of origami mathematics, since origami is a part of Japanese traditional art and culture. I am convinced that their awards really enhance the value and authority of the Katayanagi Prizes and will give a significant stimulus to academic and processional activities in computer science and technology.”
“We are very pleased to be able to honor these two distinguished computer scientists,” said Randal E. Bryant, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. “Christos Papadimitriou has made many contributions to the areas of algorithms and optimization. He has eloquently expressed the viewpoint that the field of computer science provides important concepts for mathematics and science, in addition to providing them useful tools. Erik Demaine has demonstrated to the world that the art of origami has both deep theoretical foundations and amazing creative possibilities.”
###
About the Tokyo University of Technology: The Tokyo University of Technology was founded in 1986 by Mr. Koh Katayanagi in the Hachioji District of Tokyo to expand the educational activities of Nippon Electronic Engineering College, founded as Sohbi Gakuen in 1947. Over the relatively short span of 20 years, the university has grown to be one of the nation’s leaders in high-tech education. To proactively meet tomorrow’s demand, the university provides a variety of leading-edge subjects organized around three schools (faculties): the School of Media Science, the School of Bionics and the School of Computer Science. The spacious campus, a 36-hectare (90 acre) estate surrounded by rich greenery and dotted with state-of-the-art labs and high-tech facilities, offers “an ideal environment for an ideal education” to more than 6,000 students.
About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia and Europe. For more, see www.cmu.edu <http://www.cmu.edu> .
Please join us for the ....
2008 KATAYANAGI PRIZE CEREMONY AND LECTURES <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/katayanagi>
Thursday, 10 April 2008 - Wean Hall 7500
3:15 pm - Ceremony
3:30 pm - Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence Lecture
4:30 pm - Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize Lecture
Reception to follow.
With our special guests:
Dr. Hideo Aiso, President, Tokyo University of Technology [TUT]
Dr. Taichi Nakamura, Professor, School of Computer Science, TUT
Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence Lecture
3:30 pm
> CHRISTOS H. PAPADIMITRIOU
> C. Lester Hogan Professor of
> Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley
>
> "The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is
> Transforming the Sciences"
>
>
Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize Lecture
4:30 pm
> ERIK D. DEMAINE
> Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor and Associate Professor
> Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>
> "Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
> ***************************************************
PAPADIMITRIOU
"The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is Transforming the Sciences"
Computational research transforms the sciences (physical, mathematical, life or social) not just by empowering them analytically, but mainly by providing a novel and powerful perspective which often leads to unforeseen insights. Examples abound: quantum computation provides the right forum for questioning and testing some of the most basic tenets of quantum physics, while statistical mechanics has found in the efficiency of randomized algorithms a powerful metaphor for phase transitions. In mathematics, the P vs. NP problem has joined the list of the most profound and consequential problems, and in economics considerations of computational complexity revise predictions of economic behavior and affect the design of economic mechanisms such as auctions. Finally, in biology some of the most fundamental problems, such as understanding the brain and evolution, can be productively recast in computational terms. My talk is structured around eight vignettes exemplifying this pattern.
Christos H. Papadimitriou is C. Lester Hogan Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Before joining Berkeley in 1996 he taught at Harvard, MIT, Athens Polytechnic, Stanford, and UCSD. He has written five textbooks and many research articles on algorithms and complexity, and their applications to optimization, databases, AI, economics, and the Internet. He holds a PhD from Princeton, and honorary doctorates from ETH (Zurich), the University of Macedonia, the University of Athens, and the University of Cyprus. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the ACM. His novel ."Turing". was published by MIT Press in 2003, and his graphic novel "Logicomix" (with Apostolos Doxiadis) will be published by Bloomsbury in 2008.
***************************************************************
DEMAINE
"Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
ABSTRACT:
What forms of origami can be designed automatically by algorithms? How might we build reconfigurable robots like Transformers or Terminator 3, hinging together a collection of pieces that dynamically reconfigure into arbitrary shapes? When can a robotic arm of rigid rods be folded into a desired configuration? What shapes can result by folding a piece of paper flat and making one complete straight cut? What 3D surfaces can be manufactured from a single sheet of material? How might proteins fold? Geometric folding is a branch of discrete and computational geometry that addresses these and many other intriguing questions. I will give a taste of the many results that have been proved in the past several years, as well as the several exciting unsolved problems that remain open. Many folding problems have applications in areas including manufacturing, robotics, graphics, and protein folding.
BIO:
Erik Demaine is Associate Professor and Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Demaine's research interests range throughout algorithms, from data structures for improving web searches to the geometry of understanding how proteins fold to the computational difficulty of playing games. He received a MacArthur Fellowship (2003) as a "computational geometer tackling and solving difficult problems related to folding and bending--moving readily between the theoretical and the playful, with a keen eye to revealing the former in the latter". He recently published a book about folding, together with Joseph O'Rourke, called Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra, (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has also coedited Tribute to a Mathemagician (A K Peters, 2003), in honor of the influential mathemagician Martin Gardner. His interests also span the connections between mathematics and art, particularly sculpture and performance, including curved origami sculptures currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
>
>
>
>
--Anne Watzman, director
Media Relations
School of Computer Science
412-268-3830
Contact: Anne Watzman For immediate release:
412-268-3830
aw...@andrew.cmu.edu
Byron Spice
412-268-9068
bsp...@cs.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon Announces Winners of
2008 Katayanagi Prizes in Computer Science
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University, in cooperation with the Tokyo University of Technology (TUT) in Tokyo, Japan, will award the second annual Katayanagi Prizes in Computer Science to two outstanding members of the world’s computer science community. The prizes have been endowed with a gift from Japanese entrepreneur and education advocate Mr. Koh Katayanagi, who founded TUT and several other technical institutions in Japan over the last 60 years.
The awards include the Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence and the Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize. The former is awarded to an established researcher with a record of outstanding, sustained achievement, while the latter honors someone recognized as an emerging research leader. The prizes carry an honorarium of $20,000 for the senior researcher and $10,000 for the junior. Awardees are chosen by a committee comprised of members of each institution.
Each award recipient will deliver a 45-minute lecture in 7500 Wean Hall on Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus beginning at 3:15 pm, April 10, and another at TUT in Tokyo on May 23.
This year’s Prize for Research Excellence goes to Christos Papadimitriou, the C. Lester Hogan Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley. The recipient of the Emerging Leadership Award is Erik D. Demaine, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor and associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Papatimitriou will speak on “"The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is Transforming the Sciences." The topic of Demaine’s talk is "Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms."
Papadimitriou is an internationally recognized expert on the theory of algorithms and complexity, and its applications to databases, optimization, artificial intelligence, networks and game theory. He is the author of five books, including “Computational Complexity,” one of the most widely used textbooks in the field of computational complexity theory, and “Turing,” a novel published by the MIT Press in 2003. The latter is described as a love triangle that frames the main story, a series of lessons on the history and future of thought delivered by a super-program named after the first computer scientist, Alan Turing. At Berkeley, Papadimitriou is also a member of a band made up of professors and graduate students called Lady X and the Positive Eigenvalues.
Demaine is a rising star in the area of theoretical computer science with interests in computational geometry, data structures, algorithms and combinatorics. A MacArthur Fellow, he is especially well known for his work in computational origami, the mathematics of paper folding. The elegant shapes he fashions with folded paper in pursuit of his theories are considered to be works of art. Several pieces are currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of an exhibit titled “Design and the Elastic Mind.”
“The Katayanagi Prizes continue to honor the best and brightest in the field of computer science,” said Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon. “Computer science plays a critical role everywhere in the world today, but its greatest researchers and practitioners often go unsung. Through our collaboration with the Tokyo University of Technology, and the vision and generosity of Mr. Koh Katayanagi, we are able to honor them.”
“I wish to thank the members of the Carnegie Mellon and TUT Katayanagi Prize selection committees for their endeavors and patience in accomplishing their hard duties,” said TUT President Hideo Aiso. “Both winners are internationally rcognized researchers who have made outstanding contributions to academic and industrial progress. I personally have become aware of very useful theories and algorithms through reading Dr. Papadimitriou’s textbooks, and I have been very much interested in Dr. Demaine’s research in the emerging field of origami mathematics, since origami is a part of Japanese traditional art and culture. I am convinced that their awards really enhance the value and authority of the Katayanagi Prizes and will give a significant stimulus to academic and processional activities in computer science and technology.”
“We are very pleased to be able to honor these two distinguished computer scientists,” said Randal E. Bryant, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. “Christos Papadimitriou has made many contributions to the areas of algorithms and optimization. He has eloquently expressed the viewpoint that the field of computer science provides important concepts for mathematics and science, in addition to providing them useful tools. Erik Demaine has demonstrated to the world that the art of origami has both deep theoretical foundations and amazing creative possibilities.”
###
About the Tokyo University of Technology: The Tokyo University of Technology was founded in 1986 by Mr. Koh Katayanagi in the Hachioji District of Tokyo to expand the educational activities of Nippon Electronic Engineering College, founded as Sohbi Gakuen in 1947. Over the relatively short span of 20 years, the university has grown to be one of the nation’s leaders in high-tech education. To proactively meet tomorrow’s demand, the university provides a variety of leading-edge subjects organized around three schools (faculties): the School of Media Science, the School of Bionics and the School of Computer Science. The spacious campus, a 36-hectare (90 acre) estate surrounded by rich greenery and dotted with state-of-the-art labs and high-tech facilities, offers “an ideal environment for an ideal education” to more than 6,000 students.
About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia and Europe. For more, see www.cmu.edu <http://www.cmu.edu> .
Please join us for the ....
2008 KATAYANAGI PRIZE CEREMONY AND LECTURES <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/katayanagi>
Thursday, 10 April 2008 - Wean Hall 7500
3:15 pm - Ceremony
3:30 pm - Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence Lecture
4:30 pm - Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize Lecture
Reception to follow.
With our special guests:
Dr. Hideo Aiso, President, Tokyo University of Technology [TUT]
Dr. Taichi Nakamura, Professor, School of Computer Science, TUT
Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence Lecture
3:30 pm
> CHRISTOS H. PAPADIMITRIOU
> C. Lester Hogan Professor of
> Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley
>
> "The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is
> Transforming the Sciences"
>
>
Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize Lecture
4:30 pm
> ERIK D. DEMAINE
> Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor and Associate Professor
> Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>
> "Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
> ***************************************************
PAPADIMITRIOU
"The Algorithmic Lens: How the Computational Perspective is Transforming the Sciences"
Computational research transforms the sciences (physical, mathematical, life or social) not just by empowering them analytically, but mainly by providing a novel and powerful perspective which often leads to unforeseen insights. Examples abound: quantum computation provides the right forum for questioning and testing some of the most basic tenets of quantum physics, while statistical mechanics has found in the efficiency of randomized algorithms a powerful metaphor for phase transitions. In mathematics, the P vs. NP problem has joined the list of the most profound and consequential problems, and in economics considerations of computational complexity revise predictions of economic behavior and affect the design of economic mechanisms such as auctions. Finally, in biology some of the most fundamental problems, such as understanding the brain and evolution, can be productively recast in computational terms. My talk is structured around eight vignettes exemplifying this pattern.
Christos H. Papadimitriou is C. Lester Hogan Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Before joining Berkeley in 1996 he taught at Harvard, MIT, Athens Polytechnic, Stanford, and UCSD. He has written five textbooks and many research articles on algorithms and complexity, and their applications to optimization, databases, AI, economics, and the Internet. He holds a PhD from Princeton, and honorary doctorates from ETH (Zurich), the University of Macedonia, the University of Athens, and the University of Cyprus. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the ACM. His novel ."Turing". was published by MIT Press in 2003, and his graphic novel "Logicomix" (with Apostolos Doxiadis) will be published by Bloomsbury in 2008.
***************************************************************
DEMAINE
"Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
ABSTRACT:
What forms of origami can be designed automatically by algorithms? How might we build reconfigurable robots like Transformers or Terminator 3, hinging together a collection of pieces that dynamically reconfigure into arbitrary shapes? When can a robotic arm of rigid rods be folded into a desired configuration? What shapes can result by folding a piece of paper flat and making one complete straight cut? What 3D surfaces can be manufactured from a single sheet of material? How might proteins fold? Geometric folding is a branch of discrete and computational geometry that addresses these and many other intriguing questions. I will give a taste of the many results that have been proved in the past several years, as well as the several exciting unsolved problems that remain open. Many folding problems have applications in areas including manufacturing, robotics, graphics, and protein folding.
BIO:
Erik Demaine is Associate Professor and Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Demaine's research interests range throughout algorithms, from data structures for improving web searches to the geometry of understanding how proteins fold to the computational difficulty of playing games. He received a MacArthur Fellowship (2003) as a "computational geometer tackling and solving difficult problems related to folding and bending--moving readily between the theoretical and the playful, with a keen eye to revealing the former in the latter". He recently published a book about folding, together with Joseph O'Rourke, called Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra, (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has also coedited Tribute to a Mathemagician (A K Peters, 2003), in honor of the influential mathemagician Martin Gardner. His interests also span the connections between mathematics and art, particularly sculpture and performance, including curved origami sculptures currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
>
>
>
>
--Anne Watzman, director
Media Relations
School of Computer Science
412-268-3830
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