Vishkin To Give Invited Talk on Parallel Computing at Columbia

Professor Uzi Vishkin will give an invited talk at Columbia University on Thursday, September 30. The talk, titled "Can a Simple Abstraction Guide the Reinvention of Computing for Parallelism?", is part of the Computer Science Department's Computer Architecture Lecture Series.

Prof. Vishkin will discuss how the sudden shift from single-processor computer systems to many-processor parallel ones requires reinventing much of Computer Science, specifically with regard to building and programming the new parallel systems. The idea of starting with an established easy parallel programming model and building an architecture for it has been treated as radical by vendors. Vishkin's talk advocates a more radical idea: starting with a minimalist stepping-stone, a simple abstraction that encapsulates the desired interface between programmers and system builders.

Prof. Vishkin started his work on parallel computing in 1979 as a PhD student at the Technion, Israel. His initial focus was on parallel algorithms and parallel algorithmic thinking. In 1996, he was elected ACM Fellow for, among other things, having "played a leading role in forming and shaping what thinking in parallel has come to mean in the fundamental theory of Computer Science." He is also an ISI-Thompson Highly Cited Researcher.

To see a full abstract on Prof. Vishkin's talk, visit: Columbia's Computer Science website.

Published September 25, 2010