Future directions in computer science research

Future directions in
computer science research
John Hopcroft
Cornell University
Abstract
Over the last 40 years, computer science research was focused on making
computers useful. Areas included programming languages, compilers, operating
systems, data structures and algorithms. These are still important topics but with
the merging of computing and communication, the emergence of social networks,
and the large amount of information in digital form, focus is shifting to
applications such as the structure of networks and extracting information from
large data sets. This talk will give a brief vision of the future and then an
introduction to the science base that needs to be formed to support these new
directions.
Esta plática se llevará a cabo el LUNES 2 DE DICIEMBRE, a las 12:00hrs, en el
Auditorio de Ingeniería Eléctrica (Ing. Jorge Suárez Díaz), del Centro de
Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (Av. IPN
No. 2508, Col. San Pedro Zacatenco, México, D.F., Delegación Gustavo A.
Madero, C.P. 07360).
Short biography of the Speaker
John E. Hopcroft is the IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in
Computer Science at Cornell University. He received his BS (1961) from Seattle
University and his M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in electrical engineering from
Stanford University. His research centers on theoretical aspects of computer
science. He served as dean of Cornell University’s College of Engineering from
1994 until 2001.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the National Academy of
Engineering, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, the Association of Computing Machinery, and the
Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In 1986 he was awarded the A. M.
Turing Award for his research contributions. In 1992, he was appointed by
President George Bush to the National Science Board, which oversees the National
Science Foundation, and served through May 1998. He received the IEEE Harry
Goode Memorial Award in 2005, the Computing Research Association’s
Distinguished Service Award in 2007, the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom
Outstanding Educator Award in 2009, and the IEEE Von Neumann Medal in
2010. He has honorary degrees from Seattle University, the National College of
Ireland, the University of Sydney, St Petersburg State University, Beijing
University of Technology, HKUST and is an honorary professor of the Beijing
Institute of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Chongqing University,
and Yunnan University. He serves on the Packard Foundation’s Science Advisory
Board, Microsoft Technical advisory board for Research Asia, and the advisory
boards of IIIT Delhi and Seattle University’s College of Engineering. The Chinese
Academy of Sciences has designated him as an Einstein professor.