Month: August 2015
Columbia computer science grads are second highest paid among other computer science grads according to research firm PayScale.
For early career pay, Columbia Computer Science ranks #1.
In Memoriam: Joseph F. Traub
Let me tell you how I got hooked on computing. For my thesis I worked for six months starting from a mathematical model of the helium atom and writing a program to compute the energy and other parameters of the atom. I took the cards from the IBM 650 and loaded them on the printer. The printer started spewing out approximations to the ground state energy of helium. I was using a variational principle which means I was converging down to the ground state energy of the helium matter. Watching, after the six months of work, the numbers rolling off the printer, and seeing that the initial numbers approximated the experimentally measured ground state energy of the helium atom good to four places. That was the moment.
Joseph F. Traub, a pioneering computer scientist and founder of the Computer Science department at Columbia University, died Monday, August 24, 2015 in Santa Fe, NM. He was 83. Most recently the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor of Computer Science, Traub was an early pioneer in computer science years before such a discipline existed, and he would do a lot to shape the field.
Traub was most known for his work on optimal algorithms and computational complexity applied to continuous scientific problems. In collaboration with Henryk Woźniakowski, he created the field of information-based complexity, where the goal is to understand the cost of solving problems when information is partial, contaminated, or priced. Applications for information-based complexity are diverse and include differential and integral equations, continuous optimization, path integrals, high-dimensional integration and approximation, and low-discrepancy sequences.
Understanding the role of information about a problem was a unifying theme of Traub’s contributions to a number of diverse areas of computing. Often collaborating with others, he created significant new algorithms, including the Jenkins-Traub algorithm for polynomial zeros, the Kung-Traub algorithm for comparing the expansion of an algebraic function, and the Shaw-Traub algorithm to increase computational speed. He authored or edited ten monographs and some 120 papers in computer science, mathematics, physics, computational finance, and quantum computing.
Apart from his scientific research, he had a major role in building and leading organizations that promoted computer science. In 1971, at the age of 38, he was appointed chair of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), overseeing its expansion from fewer than 10 professors to 50, and making it one of the strongest computer science departments in the country. Based on his achievements at CMU, Columbia University in 1979 extended an offer to Traub to found the University’s Computer Science department. He accepted the offer and chose to locate Computer Science within the Engineering School, which at the time offered a single computer, only three tenured faculty members teaching computer science, and a huge demand for computer classes.
After securing a $600,000 gift from IBM (which later provided another $4 million), he was able to add faculty and attract top students. Within a year the department was awarding bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as PhDs. He would chair the department until 1989.
In 1982 he oversaw the construction of the Computer Science Building, working closely with architects to come up with a final design that would later win awards.
Traub liked building things from scratch. In 1985 while still chair of the Computer Science department, he became the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Complexity (a position he held at the time of his death). In 1986, he founded the Computer Science and Technology Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council, serving as its chair from 1986 until 1992 and again in 2005 and 2009.
His awards and honors are many and 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 from the Computer Research Association (CRA). He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). He was selected by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome to present the 1993 Lezione Lincee, a cycle of six lectures. Traub received the 1999 Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, an award presented by Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In 2012, his 80th birthday was commemorated by a symposium at Columbia’s Davis Auditorium to celebrate his research and contributions to computer science.
Traub’s “contributions to Columbia’s Computer Science Department have been instrumental in establishing the strong foundation of excellence of our Computer Science department today, enabling our ongoing frontier leadership in this field,” said Dean Mary C. Boyce. “Joe will be sorely missed by all of us at Columbia and by the computer science community across the globe.”
A life of science and discovery
Traub always described himself as lucky: Lucky in his early life that his parents were able to flee Nazi Germany in 1939 and settle in New York City; that he had a knack for math and problem-solving just when those skills were needed; that a fellow student’s prescient suggestion led him to visit IBM’s Watson Laboratories where he first encountered computers. And lucky to be among the first to enter a new, unexplored field when he had the ambition to make new discoveries and a hunger to do something significant. In an interview recalling his life, he once said “I’m almost moved to tears but who could have expected such a wonderful life and such a wonderful career.”
That he returned to New York City to found Columbia’s computer science department is entirely appropriate. He attended both Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York (earning degrees in math and physics) before entering Columbia University in 1954 intent on a PhD in theoretical physics. That plan changed when he discovered computers, not at Columbia—which had no computers—but at the IBM Watson lab then located in Casa Hispanica, just off campus at 612 W. 116th Street. He was hired there as a fellow, gaining the perk of unlimited computer time.
In 1959 he earned his PhD under the Committee of Applied Mathematics at Columbia. After his first choice to work on a chess problem was rejected, he proposed instead a quantum problem that involved six months of programing to calculate the ground energy state of a helium atom, correct to four decimal points.
After graduating Columbia, Traub went to work at Bell Labs then in its “golden 60s” when researchers were given wide latitude to choose projects and conduct pure research. It was there that a colleague one day walked into his office with a problem. Could Traub find the zero of a function that involved an integral? Mulling over the problem led to two observations: one, it was expensive to compute the function; and two, there were lots of ways of solving it. His thinking about how to select the best, most optimal algorithm culminated in his 1964 monograph Iterative Methods for the Solution of Equations. It was the start of his career with many publications to come.
His luck extended to his personal life. He was married to Pamela McCorduck, a noted author who also taught science writing at Columbia. He enjoyed skiing, tennis, hiking, travel, and good food.
He regularly spent his summers in Santa Fe, where he was an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and played a variety of roles over the years, often organizing workshops to bring together those working in science and math. It was in Santa Fe where he died Monday morning, unexpectedly and quickly, after having made plans to travel to Germany, Poland, and CMU. He is survived by his wife Pamela and two daughters, Claudia Traub-Cooper and Hillary Spector.
Joseph Traub was an important and valued member of the Computer Science department he founded. He will be missed by faculty, staff, and students.
Posted 8/25/2015
– Linda Crane
Vishal Misra goes before Indian Parliament Committee to present views on net neutrality
The contentious issue of net neutrality, which roiled the US earlier this year, is now playing out in India, with Vishal Misra an active participant. Last week he appeared before Parliament to present his views on net neutrality, and subsequently contributed articles and interviews for leading media outlets (including in The Hindu and in The Financial Express).
His opinion is sought both for his deep grasp of the technical issues surrounding net neutrality as well as his experience building Internet-based businesses. An associate professor of computer science at Columbia, Misra has been researching Internet economics issues for the past eight years, particularly how profit-motivated decisions by Internet service providers are eroding the long-standing principle of net neutrality. (His research is summarized in Net neutrality is all good and fine; the real problem is elsewhere.) He is also an early and still active Internet entrepreneur, having co-founded CricInfo, the world’s most popular single sport website (exceeding even nfl.com or mlb.com in popularity) and is ESPN’s most popular property (ESPN acquired CricInfo in 2007). More recently, Misra founded the data center storage startup Infinio.
Misra’s appearance before Parliament came at the invitation of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, which is considering a recent government report (prepared by the Department of Transportation, or DoT) on net-neutrality policy formulations. The report was made available for public comments while a small group of interested parties—including Misra, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and a small number of local companies and public interest groups—were asked by the committee to present their views on the report in person.
The DoT report for the most part enforces net neutrality by banning blocking, throttling, and prioritizing content. However, it still allows for—subject to regulatory approval—the practice of zero rating.
In zero rating, consumers access certain apps and sites for free, without having to pay data charges. Those charges are either absorbed by the service provider (as a way to attract customers) or are underwritten by content providers through payments to the service provider. Facebook for instance might pay Airtel (India’s largest telecom operator) an agreed-upon amount to cover data charges for Facebook customers on Airtel. For Facebook customers on networks other than Airtel, Facebook would separately negotiate with those other providers.
On the surface zero rating seems like a good deal for consumers, and Facebook has been especially active in promoting zero rating, pitching it as an accessibility effort to make Internet access more affordable for the large percentage of Indian consumers who otherwise couldn’t afford to pay for that access. (It is estimated that only around 19% of India’s population has Internet access.)
But as critics point out, zero rating creates an uneven playing field that benefits large, well-funded companies that can afford to subsidize their customers’ data charges. Their packets are “free” while packets from companies unable to afford zero-rating payments are not. It’s a pricing structure that discriminates against mainly small companies and startups, even if they offer superior services or innovative features.
While the exact definition of net neutrality is often debated (Misra himself addresses this issue in What Constitutes Net Neutrality?), net neutrality is universally understood to prohibit service providers from discriminating among packets based on who the content is for. Enacting the DoT’s rule as it is written now gives an opening to Indian service providers to do just that.
Facebook and Google and other large, well-funded companies not surprisingly tend to support zero rating. From public statements, it can be assumed Facebook voiced its support for the policy before the Standing Committee on Information Technology. (Google declined its invitation to depose.)
Testimony before the committee is confidential, but Misra’s support for net neutrality practices is well-known not only from articles and statements he has made in the past, but through his extensive research examining network neutrality from engineering, networking, and economic perspectives. (See On Cooperative Settlement Between Content, Transit and Eyeball Internet Service Providers and The Public Option: A Non-regulatory Alternative to Network Neutrality.) This research in particular highlights the danger of anti-competitive, non-neutral practices. Whether it’s ISPs favoring certain packets over others (as in zero rating) or a lack of competition in the last-mile connection, the effect is the same: innovation suffers, and service providers lose the incentive to improve service and keep prices low.
That zero rating should be banned seems to be shared by a growing segment of the Indian population. The deadline for the public to comment on the government report, originally set for August 15, had to be extended by five days to accommodate the huge number of comments, almost all of which is favor banning zero rating.
The government’s response to the DoT report and public comments is expected in two to three months.
About Vishal Misra
Vishal Misra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is credited with inventing live-microblogging at Cricinfo, a company he co-founded while a graduate student at UMass Amherst, thus predating Twitter by 10 years. Cricinfo was later acquired by ESPN and is still the world’s most popular sports portal.
Dr. Misra has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Department of Energy CAREER Award, and Google and IBM Faculty Awards. His research emphasis is on mathematical modeling of networking systems, bridging the gap between practice and analysis.
He served as the Vice-Chair of the Computer Science Department at Columbia University from 2009 to 2011, and in 2011 he spun out Infinio, a company in the area of datacenter storage. After raising $24 million from top-tier venture capital firms and recruiting a professional executive team, he has transitioned to the role of Chief Scientist of the company. Infinio is based in Boston and employs over 50 people.
Misra received his B. Tech. from IIT Bombay (1992) and an MS (1996) and PhD (2000) from UMass Amherst, which just awarded him a Junior Alumni Award for extraordinary effort and notable early-career success.
He has been interested in net neutrality for several years. In 2008, he coauthored On Cooperative Settlement Between Content, Transit and Eyeball Internet Service Providers, which predicted the rise of paid peering by looking at the profit-motivated decisions of the ISPs. In 2012, he and Richard T. B. Ma authored The Public Option: A Non-regulatory Alternative to Network Neutrality to understand how the introduction of a public-option ISP would affect change in the behaviors of ISPs.
Misra also sometimes blogs on the subject at Peer unreviewed and tweets about it at @vishalmisra. For more information, see his Columbia website. He also maintains a personal blog, A little corner of a foreign field, where the subject is often cricket.
In the Press
What constitutes Net Neutrality?
Record Cafe: Zero-rated plans can be used to kill innovation
Henning Schulzrinne named recipient of 2016 IEEE Internet Award
Henning Schulzrinne, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Mathematical Methods and Computer Science at The Fu Foundation School of Engineering at Columbia University, has been named the recipient of the 2016 IEEE Internet Award for exceptional contributions to the advancement of Internet technology.
Schulzrinne was recognized “for formative contributions to the design and standardization of Internet multimedia protocols and applications.” Schulzrinne is particularly known for his contributions in developing the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP), the key protocols that enable Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other multimedia applications. Each is now an Internet standard and together they have had an immense impact on telecommunications, both by greatly reducing consumer costs and by providing a flexible alternative to the traditional and expensive public-switched telephone network.
“This award also recognizes the work by my students and visitors in the Columbia IRT lab as well as all the other colleagues who contributed to making Internet-based multimedia possible,” says Schulzrinne, in referring to the Internet Real-Time (IRT) Lab, which he directs and which conducts research in the areas of Internet and multimedia services.
The Internet award follows on the heel of two other honors recently accorded Schulzrinne. In January, he was named an ACM Fellow, and in December 2014 he received an Outstanding Service Award by the Internet Technical Committee (ITC), of which he was the founding chair. In 2013, Schulzrinne was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. Other notable awards include the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology and the VON Pioneer Award.
Schulzrinne whose research interests include applied network engineering, wireless networks, security, quality of service, and performance evaluation, continues to work on VoIP and other multimedia applications and is currently investigating an overall architecture for the Internet of Things and making it easier to diagnose network problems. He is also active in designing technology solutions to limit phone spam (“robocalls”) and recently testified on this topic before the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
In addition to his research, Schulzrinne is active in public policy and in serving the broader technology community. From 2012 until 2014, he was the Chief Technology Officer for the Federal Communications Committee where he guided the FCC’s work on technology and engineering issues and played a major role in the FCC’s decision to require mobile carriers to support customers’ abilities to contact 911 using text messages. He continues to serve as a technical advisor to the FCC.
Schulzrinne is a past member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society and a current vice chair of ACM SIGCOMM. He has served on the editorial board of several key publications, chaired important conferences, and published more than 250 journal and conference papers and more than 86 Internet Requests for Comment.
Schulzrinne received his undergraduate degree in economics and electrical engineering from the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, his MSEE degree as a Fulbright scholar from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio and his PhD from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Posted 6/30/2015
-Linda Crane
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