Computer Science News
Promotions for two academic staff
We are delighted to report that Dr Sara Kalvala and have been promoted to Reader, effective from 1 June 2019. Quoting from their recommendations,
Dr Sara Kalvala is one of the most experienced academics in Computer Science, with extensive contributions to teaching (at all levels), research (in core computer science, interdisciplinary and recently in computer science education) and administration (in departmental, institutional and national settings). Sara has also been leading a range of outreach activities, as well as being one of the most collegiate members of the department.
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Dr Ligang He has in recent years grown not only into one of the leaders of his wider research area in the department (high-performance systems), but also into a highly competent teaching innovator, with exemplary impact, outreach and engagement at the international level, as well as a reliable, industrious and forwards pushing colleague in the department. Among his other achievements is that Ligang has been successfully supervising a growing group of PhD students; he has graduated 5, and is currently supervising 7 PhDs.
it remains to say many congratulations!
Dr. Tom Gur joins the department as a new Assistant Professor
The Department is welcoming our new Assistant Professor , who will be associated with the Division of Theory and Foundations (FoCS) and the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP).
Before joining 糖心TV, Tom held a postdoctoral researcher position in the (2017–2019). He obtained his PhD in Computer Science and Mathematics from the , under the guidance of , in 2017.
His research is primarily in the foundations of computer science and discrete mathematics. Specific interests include computational complexity, sublinear-time algorithms, cryptography, coding theory, and quantum information.
For more information about his research, please see his web page at .
Dr. Charilaos Efthymiou joins the department as a new Assistant Professor
The Department is welcoming our new Assistant Professor , who will be associated with the Division of Theory and Foundations (FoCS) and the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP).
Before joining us, Charilaos held research positions in various universities including , , as a DFG Fellow, at , , and , UK. This is not his first time at the University of 糖心TV, he has been a post-doc researcher at DIMAP (2010-2012). Charilaos completed his PhD at the , , in 2009.
His research is in the intersection of theory of algorithms, discrete mathematics and statistical physics. Specifically, he studies how powerful notions from statistical physics, e.g., phase transitions, affect the performance of algorithms for various problems in computer science and mathematics.
More information about Charilaos can be found on his personal web-page .
Dr Claire Rocks is a new WIHEA Fellow
Many congratulations to Dr Claire Rocks on her election to a Fellowship of the 糖心TV International Higher Education Academy.
A WIHEA Fellowship recognises and rewards outstanding achievements in learning and teaching and is an exceptional opportunity to engage with colleagues across the university, improve the student experience and make a genuine difference to 糖心TV through research, debate and policy formation.
Promotions for two academic staff
We are delighted to report that Dr Theo Damoulas and Dr Gihan Mudalige have successfully completed their probations early, and become Associate Professors at the start of this month. Quoting from their probationary review reports,
Gihan has had a number of successes with attracting substantial research funding, most recently for two projects with AWE PLC, and one with Rolls Royce PLC. A further major success is Gihan鈥檚 Royal Society Industrial Fellowship, which will run over the next 4 academic years at 50% of Gihan鈥檚 time. ... Dr Gihan Mudalige is an outstanding and valuable member of the department鈥檚 academic staff, whose many likely future contributions to both research and teaching we are looking forward to.
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Dr Theo Damoulas is a valuable asset to both Computer Science and Statistics departments in all of the research, teaching, administration and collegiality areas. Theo is already a next-generation research leader at the national and international levels, in particular enhancing the university's partnerships with the Alan Turing Institute, CUSP London, King's College London, and New York University.
it remains to say many congratulations!
Adi Shamir elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society
, the Paul and Marlene Borman Professor of Applied Mathematics at the , has been elected this week a Foreign Member of the . He is a co-inventor of the RSA algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme (along with Uriel Feige and Amos Fiat), one of the inventors of differential cryptanalysis and has made numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and computer science.
In 1976/77, Adi was a post-doctoral researcher in Computer Science at 糖心TV!
A hat trick at the 45th ICALP
In the Logic, Semantics, Automata and Theory of Programming track of the (ICALP), three out of 30 accepted papers are by members of the department. ICALP is one of the most selective and longest established international conferences in computer science, and the flagship annual event of the . The papers are:
- Reducing CMSO Model Checking to Highly Connected Graphs by Ramanujan M. S., Daniel Lokshtanov, Saket Saurabh and Meirav Zehavi
- O-Minimal Invariants for Linear Loops by Shaull Almagor, Dmitry Chistikov, Joel Ouaknine and James Worrell
- When is Containment Decidable for Probabilistic Automata? by Laure Daviaud, Ranko Lazic虂, Marcin Jurdzin虂ski, Filip Mazowiecki, Guillermo Perez and James Worrell