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NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AT VOL.3 NO.1 FALL 2006 CUCS colloquium information is available at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/lectures Columbia Computer Visit the CUCS alumni portal at http://alum.cs.columbia.edu Science Faculty in the National Academies Alfred V. Aho Stephen M. Bellovin

Columbia University in the City of New York Department of Computer Science NON-PROFIT ORG. 1214 Amsterdam Avenue U.S. POSTAGE Mailcode: 0401 PAID Zvi Galil Edward H. Shortliffe Joseph F. Traub Vladimir Vapnik New York, NY 10027-7003 NEW YORK, NY PERMIT 4332 At this year’s computer science department Alfred V. Aho is Lawrence Vice President, Director, ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED “Hello Meeting,” members of the faculty Gussman Professor of department head, and member of technical staff. This is the recalled the early days of the department Computer Science and Vice Chair for Undergraduate lab that invented UNIX, C and when the same meeting could be held on Education in the Computer C++. Al was also the General the first floor of Mudd, in the small area that Science Department. He Manager of the Information is now used for making sandwiches in the served as Chair of the Sciences and Technologies Carleton Lounge. Since then, the computer department from 1995 to Research Laboratory at 1997 and in the spring of Bellcore (now Telcordia). science department has grown both in size 2003. He was elected to the Professor Aho is the “A” in and prominence. The faculty now includes U.S. National Academy of AWK, a widely used pattern- six members of the National Academies: Engineering for contributions matching language (you can Al Aho, Steven M. Bellovin, Zvi Galil, Ted to the fields of think of AWK as the initial and programming tools. Shortliffe, Joe Traub, and Vladimir Vapnik. pure version of perl). “W” is Peter Weinberger and “K” Here is a brief overview of their achievements Professor Aho received his B.A.Sc in Engineering Physics is Brian Kernighan. Al also and contributions. from the University of Toronto wrote the initial versions of and a Ph.D. in Electrical the string pattern-matching Engineering/Computer Science programs egrep and fgrep from Princeton University. that first appeared on UNIX. Prior to his current position at His current research interests Columbia, Professor Aho served include quantum computing, in many capacities at the programming languages, Computing Sciences Research compilers, and algorithms. Center at , such as (continued on next page)

CS@CU NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY WWW.CS.COLUMBIA.EDU CS@CU FALL 2006 1 Cover Story (continued)

Professor Aho has won the and cybersecurity research journals and is the editor Care, while directing an active many countries. IBC studies National Academy of one hundred research papers. These six National IEEE John von Neumann needs. He was also a member of the book “Computational research program in clinical optimal algorithms and Engineering elected Professor His major achievements have Academy members Medal and has received of the information technology Algorithms on Strings.” information systems and computational complexity Vapnik as a new member in been the development of a honorary doctorates from subcommittee of an NRC Although being the Dean of decision support. He spear- for the continuous problems 2006 for “insights into the general theory for minimizing represent the growth the Universities of Helsinki study group on science versus Engineering and Applied headed the formation of a which arise in physical science, fundamental complexities of the expected risk of predictors and prominence of the and Waterloo. He is a terrorism. He was a member Science has taken up most of Stanford graduate degree pro- mathematical finance, learning and for inventing using empirical data, and a Columbia Computer Member of the American of the Internet Architecture his time for the last 12 years, he gram in biomedical informatics engineering and economics. practical and widely applied new type of learning machine Science Department since Academy of Arts and Board from 1996-2002, and reports, with great mirth, that and divided his time between A major focus of his current machine-learning algorithms”. (the Support Vector Machine) its modest beginnings. Sciences and a Fellow of was co-director of the Security he still tries to find the most clinical medicine and biomed- work is quantum computing. that possesses a high level of Professor Vapnik obtained his Undergraduates and the American Association Area of the IETF from 2002 efficient way to solve problems. ical informatics research. He has received numerous Masters Degree in generalization ability. These for the Advancement of through 2004. He sits on Professor Shortliffe continues honors including election in 1958 at Uzbek State techniques have been used to graduate students alike Science, ACM, Bell Labs, the Department of Homeland solve many pattern recognition is to be closely involved with to the National Academy of University, , USSR are fortunate to have and IEEE. He received Security’s Science and Edward H. Shortliffe and regression estimation Rolf A. Scholdager Professor biomedical informatics graduate Engineering in 1985, the and his Ph.D at the Institute such giant shoulders to the Great Teacher Award Technology Advisory Board. problems and have been and Chair of the Department training where he works to Emanuel R. Piore Medal from of Control Sciences in the for 2003 from the Society applied to the problems of stand on. of Biomedical Informatics create a new breed of health IEEE in 1991, selection by Academy of Sciences, , of Columbia Graduates. dependency estimation, fore- is the Dean of the at Columbia College of professional. His research the Accademia Nazionale dei in 1964. From 1964 to 1990 Zvi Galil casting, and constructing School of Engineering and Physicians and Surgeons. He interests include the broad Lincei in Rome to present he worked at the Institute, intelligent machines. Professor is a Applied Science. He is the is an elected member of the range of issues related to the 1993 Lezione Lincei, and where he became Head of the Steven M. Bellovin Vapnik’s research combines Professor of Computer Science. Julian Clarence Levi Professor Institute of Medicine of the integrated decision-support the 1999 Mayor’s Award for Computer Science Research mathematical analysis of the He was elected to the National of Mathematical Methods National Academy of Sciences. systems, their effective Excellence in Science and Department. He then joined problem of empirical inference Academy of Engineering and Computer Science, and implementation, and the role Technology in . In AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, After receiving an A.B. in in complex (high dimensional) for contributions to network served as Chairman of the of the Internet in health care. 2001, he received an honorary NJ, as a Consultant, and Applied Mathematics from worlds with philosophical inter- applications and security. Department of Computer Doctorate of Science from the was appointed Professor of Harvard College in 1970, he pretation of such inferences Science from 1989 until July University of Central Florida. Computer Science and Statistics Professor Bellovin joined the moved to Stanford University Joseph F. Traub is the Edwin based on the imperative which 1995. In 2004, Dean Galil at Royal Holloway in 1995. faculty in 2005 after many where he could pursue Howard Armstrong Professor he formulated in 1995: “When was elected to the National years at Bell Labs and AT&T interests in medicine and of Computer Science. Vladimir Vapnik is Professor Professor Vapnik has taught solving a problem of interest, Academy of Engineering for Labs Research, where he was computer science, and was He came to Columbia in of Computer Science at and researched in computer do not solve a more general his contributions to the design an AT&T Fellow. He was first awarded a Ph.D. in Medical 1979 as founding chair Columbia and Fellow at NEC science and theoretical and problem as an intermediate and exposed to computers in 10th Information Sciences in of the Computer Science Labs. He is currently at the applied statistics for over thirty step. Try to get the answer and for leadership in computer grade at Stuyvesant High 1975 and an M.D. in 1976. Department. From 1971 Center for Computational years. He has published six that you really need but not a science and engineering. School and has been working Subsequently, he served as to 1979 he was Head of Learning Systems. The monographs and more than more general one.” in the field ever since. He Dean Galil began his studies in Professor of Medicine and of the Computer Science received a BA degree from applied mathematics; he soon Computer Science at Stanford Department at Carnegie Columbia University, and an turned to the emerging field University. In January 2000 Mellon University. He served MS and PhD in Computer of computer science, which he he assumed his new post at as founding Chairman of Science from the University saw as an extension of his Columbia University, where the Computer Science and of North Carolina at Chapel interest in mathematics. His he is also Deputy Vice Telecommunications Board Feature Article Hill. As a graduate student, main research pursuits are President (Columbia University (CSTB) of the National he helped create Netnews; in the design and analysis of Medical Center); Senior Academies from 1986 to 1992 for this, he and his fellow algorithms, computational Associate Dean for Strategic and is again serving as Chair. Professor Shree Nayar Named as 2006 Great Teacher contributors were awarded complexity, and . Information Resources CSTB deals with critical the 1995 Usenix Lifetime He is a world leader in the (College of Physicians and national issues in computing, Professor Shree Nayar was Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, Achievement Award. design and analysis of computer Surgeons); Professor of communications, and public T.C. Chang Professor named as the recipient of the Mario Salvadori, Morton algorithms and has developed Medicine; Professor of policy (see www.cstb.org). He of Computer Science Bellovin is the co-author of 2006 Great Teacher Award for Friedman, Rene Testa, and a number of techniques to Computer Science; and has served as founding Editor- the book “Firewalls and Shree Nayar. the School of Engineering at others. The Great Teachers improve their efficiency. Many Director of Medical Informatics in-Chief of the Journal of Internet Security: Repelling Columbia University. The award Award Dinner was held in of his algorithms remain the Services for the New York Complexity since 1985. the Wily Hacker,” and holds is bestowed by the Society of Low Library on the evening fastest at solving a particular Presbyterian Hospital. several patents on crypto- He is the author, co-author, or Columbia Graduates. Its Board of Thursday, October 19, 2006. graphic and network protocols. kind of problem or use the During the early 1970s, editor of nine books and has of Directors named Professor The Society was formed His current research interests smallest amount of memory Professor Shortliffe was principal published some one hundred Nayar for this award because it in 1909; it will soon be include security and privacy to find a solution. He has developer of the medical and twenty papers. His feels that he exemplifies the celebrating its 100 year issues in large scale and collaborated with scientists expert system known as latest book, Complexity and greatest traditions of teaching anniversary. Throughout distributed networks. He is in diverse fields, including MYCIN. After a pause for Information, co-authored with at Columbia and has earned much of its existence, the also interested in human biology, mathematics, and internal medicine house-staff Professor Arthur G. Werschulz, the recognition of his students Society’s principal mission factor aspects of security. statistics, to devise novel ways training at Massachusetts was published by Cambridge and his peers as a dedicated has been to recognize great to attack difficult problems. General Hospital and Stanford University Press in 1998. Professor Bellovin has served and inspired undergraduate service to Columbia by its Dean Galil has been a professor Hospital between 1976 and on many National Research Traub and Professor Henryk teacher and mentor. alumni and by its faculty. at Columbia University since 1979, he joined the Stanford Council study committees, Wozniakowski started the As one of the Society’s Great 1982, having previously served internal medicine faculty where Congratulations to Shree on including those on information field of information-based Teachers, Shree joins the ranks at University. He is he served as Chief of General this well-deserved recognition systems trustworthiness, complexity (IBC), which is of Columbia’s finest and most the author of more than 200 Internal Medicine, Associate of his outstanding teaching! the privacy implications of now an active research area beloved professors, such as authentication technologies, research papers in refereed Chair of Medicine for Primary involving researchers from

2 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 3 Other News

them for computational research New Computer Science Courses in the field. Topics include: genetics of a single site, coa- lescence with recombination, Debbie Cook and design of mainframes, desk- history of humans, mapping offered COMS 6998-1, Practical tops, PDAs and set top boxes rare mutations through linkage, Cryptography, in the Fall 2006 to illustrate architectural mapping common variants semester. The course focuses concepts. The final assignment through association, isolated on practical aspects of cryptog- is for students to write a paper and admixed populations, raphy to complement the topics on how they would design natural selection, copy number covered in “Introduction to their own ideal system for a changes, model organisms, Cryptography” and in “Network particular workload they are and genotyping technologies. Security.” The course consists targeting, describing their ideal The computational toolbox of a mixture of lectures and hardware, operating system, discussed includes parameter student presentations of current virtualization and I/O layers. inference, likelihood analysis, research papers. Topics include At the end of class, students hidden Markov and other the design of algorithms used pitch their designs to a fictitious graphical models, eigenvalue in practice and cryptanalysis, CEO (our class) and the class decompositions, and classifica- hash functions, elliptic curves, votes for which system tion problems. electronic cash, threshold cryp- to “bet” the company on. tography, forward security, key Professor Henning Schulzrinne insulated security, and trusted Prabhakar Kudva offered CSEE offered COMS 4995-01, computing. The course requires 4340 (formerly listed as ELEN Special Topics in Computer: a semester-long project on a 4340) for the first time as a VoIP Security, in the Fall 2006 topic of the student’s choice. Computer Science department semester. This is a seminar The projects are practical course in the Spring 2006 and lab course on VoIP (voice- in nature and include imple- semester. This course is a hands- over-IP) and VoIP security. The mentations of attacks on or on, laboratory-based introduction course defines VoIP broadly to the statistical analysis of to the design of digital systems, include real-time voice, video algorithms, and implementa- culminating in the design of a and instant messaging. Topics tions of electronic cash and complete working computer. covered include electronic voting systems. Students learn computer archi- • basic VoIP technology: audio tecture, register-transfer-level and video coding, RTP, SIP; Donna Dillenberger offered specification, describe designs a new 6000 level graduate with and simulate using VHDL • IM and presence: proprietary A screenshot from a student project in COMS 4995-2, Video Game Design and Development. course, Advanced Computer and implement a computer using systems, XMPP and SIMPLE; Design, in the Fall 2006 FPGAs. This is a practical course, • basic security issues: Adjunct Professors Michael Bernard Yee offered COMS and the business of games. semester. The goal of the not a theoretical one. The goal is impersonation and Theobald and Franjo Ivancic 4995-2, Video Game Design The approach uses both course is to train students to to teach the art and practice of authentication, privacy; taught CSEE 6832, Formal and Development, in the academic/lecture/discussion design systems holistically, from digital system design by working • VoIP spam (“spit”, “spim”) Verification of Hardware and Spring 2006 semester. The class time and practical, on a real design; as such, most • The hardware level and prevention mechanisms; Software Systems, in the Fall course covers the process of guided workshop sessions. of the focus of the course is the (chip level, I/O subsystems, 2006 semester. The course creating and developing video Students are expected to work laboratory and the project. The • VoIP denial-of-service attacks; packaging, cooling introduces the theory and game designs; the theme is to individually and collaborate course includes a lot of hands-on considerations), to • Skype; practice of formal methods for allow creative vision and tech- as part of a small team. The experience with industrial design the analysis of concurrent and nical limitations (time, budget, theme is to replicate a real- • The virtualization layer (hard- tools and techniques. Students • security for peer-to-peer embedded systems. The focus team size, technology choices, world pre-production process. ware, software hypervisors, extensively use the industry VoIP; and paravirtualization), to of the course is on model etc.) to constrain and inform standard language VHDL as well • emergency calling. checking, which is an algorith- each other. Students learn to • The operating system as use the Cadence tool suite As part of the course, students mic approach to verification. design and prototype game (advanced topics: workload also widely used in industry to Topics include temporal logics, designs, acquire tools for the management, recovery, develop their design. • learn about VoIP protocols Binary Decision Diagrams, and critical analysis of the game- availability, reliability, and technology; SAT solvers. Students also play experience, and apply Professor Itsik Pe’er taught servicability, metering), to • install, test and measure learn how to use the popular these critical skills as they COMS 6998-3, Computational • Middleware scalability and a complete VoIP system; SPIN and SMV model check- play, dissect, tune, and replay Human Genetics, in the Fall ers, and hear about practical games in a rigorous iterative clustering issues. • conduct a team project 2006 semester. This course is experiences of applying formal game development process. Student learn how tradeoffs in implementing, as intended to introduce students verification to hardware and The course also touches upon these layers lead to different open-source software, of both computational and bio- software projects in industry. related subjects including optimizations for different an aspect of VoIP; and medical skill sets to current Students may elect to do a interactive narrative, character types of workloads. The course quantitative understanding of • prepare a survey talk on research project that is geared design, multiplayer dynamics, AI uses real case studies in the human genetics and prepare a topic related to VoIP. towards their background. design, production processes,

4 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 5 Other News New Faces

Professor Dana Pe’er uses Professor Dana Pe’er has Mansoor Hila Becker Malek Ben-Salem graduated Bayesian networks and other received numerous awards, Alicherry graduated from from the University of Hanover, statistical approaches to devel- most notably the Burroughs completed Stony Brook Germany with a B.S. and M.S op models that integrate het- Welcome Fund Career Award his B.S. in University in Electrical Engineering in 1999 Computer Science erogeneous types of biological at the Interface of Science. Computer with a B.S. and 2001 respectively. She data to uncover interactions Her work on reconstructing Science from in Computer worked at IBM Corporation Department Welcomes between biological components signaling networks in human National Science and from 2001-2006, did an M.S. in and elucidate how these com- cells was runner up for Science Institute of Applied Math computer science at Columbia bine together at a systems Magazine’s Breakthrough of Technology, Calicut, India in and Statistics in May 2004. from 2003-2005, and started Professors Dana level to compute and execute the year 2005. At Columbia 1997. He worked in Wipro from She got her M.S. in Computer as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2006. decisions. These models can University, Dana Pe’er intends 1997-1998. He did his M.S. in Science from Columbia Malek’s main research interests and Itsik Pe'er represent stochastic nonlinear to continue bridging the gap Computer Science from Indian University in 2005 and started are Computer Security and relationships among multiple between Computer Science Institute of Science (IISc), as a Ph.D. student in the spring . She is cur- interacting molecules and and Biology to elucidate Bangalore in 2000, where he of 2006. Hila’s main research rently working with Professor accommodate the noise inher- fundamental understandings specialized on operating sys- interests include theoretical and Stolfo’s group studying Insider ent to biologically derived in biology and disease. tems. He has been working in applied Machine Learning and Intrusion Detection. data. Additionally, the models Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs Information Retrieval. She is Professor Itsik Pe’er holds Sasha P. Caskey are inherently flexible enough bachelors, masters, and doctoral since 2000. His research inter- currently working in the Center graduated to integrate diverse data degrees in computer science ests are in network security and for Computational Learning from Brandeis types and handle unobserved from . He routing and design algorithms Systems with Dr. Marta Arias University with components. These network has worked extensively in bio- for optical and mobile networks. on online-learning techniques a BA in 1997. models provide the means to medical research laboratories He is currently working with for prediction of electricity After graduation address questions such as at the Weizmann Institute and Professor Angelos Keromytis distribution feeder failures. he joined how does dysregulation cause the Broad Institute of Harvard on network security. Fadi Biadsy graduated from The MITRE disease and where are the & MIT, where he conducted optimal points for corrective Stuart Andrews Ben-Gurion University with Corporation in Bedford, MA Professor Dana Pe’er Professor Itsik Pe’er postdoctoral research. Itsik began working a B.S. in Computer Science where he contributed to research interference and cure. studies, develops, and applies with Professor and Mathematics in July 2002. and development in Collaboration Dana Pe’er received a B.Sc. in novel computational methods The Computer Science department Tony Jebara as He worked at Dalet Digital Systems (CVS, JCS, SIMP), mathematics (1995), an M.Sc. in human genetics. How is it is delighted to welcome Dana and a postdoc in the Media Systems from 2001 to Natural Language Processing and in theoretical computer science best to measure, describe and Fall of 2006. He 2005 as a software architect Spoken Dialog Systems (DARPA Itsik Pe’er as Assistant Professors (1999) and a Ph.D. for her work quantify differences between hold B.Sc. and and developer. He received his Communicator). In 2000 he of Computer Science. in machine learning approaches individual DNA sequences? M.Sc. degrees M.S. in computer science at joined a startup, Speechworks for reconstruction of molecular How does sequence variation from the University of Toronto Ben-Gurion University with Int., where he worked in product networks (2003), all from affect biological processes? and shortly expects to receive highest honors in 2005; he development and research on the Hebrew University of How can we use it to under- his Ph.D. from Brown University. explored the problem of online spoken dialog systems. He Jerusalem: Professor Pe’er’s stand and influence human Professor Dana Pe’er uses His research focuses on semi- handwriting recognition for joined IBM T.J. Watson Research graduate research pioneered disease? All these questions machine learning techniques to supervised and structured- Arabic script using hidden labs in 2003 and is a working the use of probabilistic graphical pose complex analytical develop computational tools output learning algorithms. Markov models. He started first year Ph.D. Student under the models (Bayesian Networks) challenges, with direct impact and models to understand how At Columbia, he and Professor as a Ph.D. student in the supervision of Professor Kathy for the reconstruction of on medical research. Professor biological networks process Jebara are developing algo- Department of Computer McKeown in the NLP group. molecular networks. Her influ- Itsik Pe’er is specifically signals and execute complex rithms that learn to predict Science at Columbia University ential adaptation of Bayesian interested in genetics of biological functions. Professor properties of edges in a in Spring of 2006. Fadi’s main Oliver Cossairt networks has more than 600 special populations that Pe’er is interested in under- network of N entities, based research interests focus on graduated with citations and is taught in underwent bottleneck and standing the design, function on attributes of the entities spoken language processing; a B.S. from computational biology courses admixture events, in the and evolution of molecular net- as well as the global network particularly, identifying charis- Evergreen world-wide. To strengthen optimal implementation and works. Molecular networks structure. When applied to matic speech, Arabic dialect State College in her cross training in biology, analysis of whole genome regulate the basics processes a social network, such as the identification using prosody, June 2001. He following her graduation, association studies, and in of life, for example, a sequence kind maintained by students and the acoustic/prosodic and did an M.S. in Dr. Pe’er joined the laboratory the interplay between somatic of developmental decisions in a university setting, this intonational structure of Arabic Media Arts and of Professor George Church and germline variation. regulate the formation of an learns how to assign language. He is currently Sciences at MIT from 2001- in the Genetics department entire human body from a sin- in a balanced fashion a set of working with Professor Julia 2003. After graduating from at Harvard Medical School. gle zygote cell. Understanding likely friends and/or mentors Hirschberg’s Spoken Language MIT, he worked at Actuality During her postdoctoral fellow- the normal function of the for the incoming class, from Processing group studying the Systems for three years before ship, she gained biological molecular network will allow the friendship structure of acoustic/prosodic and lexical he began his PhD at Columbia expertise, while continuing us to understand how its the existing students. Other characteristics of Arabic and University in the Fall of 2006. to do research of significant “dysfunction” leads to many applications of these methods American English Charismatic Oliver’s main research interest impact and influence on diseases including cancer and include network biology and speech. is in computation displays and both the computational and autoimmunity. e-commerce. cameras, specifically in Three- biological sciences. Dimensional displays and light fields. He is currently working with Shree Nayar in the Vision and Graphics Group.

6 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 7 New Faces (continued)

Kevin Egan are geometric modeling and Tie Hu Aly A. Khan Schulzrinne. He is currently Fall 2006. Ohan’s main research Lily Bao Secora graduated physical simulation. Currently he is a postdoc in graduated from investigating adaptive algorithms interest is Augmented Reality joined the from Brown is part of the computer graphics the Robotics Carnegie Mellon suitable for transient peer-to- and Virtual Reality. He is currently Computer University in group at Columbia, where he lab working with a M.S. in peer communication networks. working with Professor Steven Science 2003, then works with Professor Eitan with Professor Computational Feiner’s group developing a Department worked on Grinspun on a new algorithm Peter Allen. He Biology in May Chris Murphy framework that will be useful for in April 2006 the software for physical simulation of cloth. received a Ph.D 2006. He com- is working creating 3D User Interface and as the Ph.D. renderer at in Mechanical pleted his MS with Prof. Gail Augmented Reality applications Program Rhythm and Hues Studios in David Harmon Engineering from Drexel thesis under Professor Russell Kaiser in the using an existing commercial Administrator. She manages the Los Angeles for two years. graduated from University in 2006, and worked Schwartz on modeling a novel Programming game engine. day-to-day operations of the PhD He started as a Ph.D. student Wofford College as an automation engineer in biological mechanism for splic- Systems Lab and program. She has a Masters of at Columbia in Fall 2006, and with a B.S. China from 1999 to 2001. His ing of very large introns in DNA. is investigating Kumiko Ono Education degree in Counseling is working with Professor in Computer research interests are medical He was a Howard Hughes the software graduated from and Personnel Services and has Ravi Ramamoorthi’s Computer Science and robotics, haptics, soft tissue Medical Institute undergraduate testing and quality assurance Ochanomizu worked for five years in higher Graphics group. Mathematics in modeling, electro-mechanical fellow while working in the lab of machine learning algorithms. University, Japan education. Her hobbies include May 2005. After system design and control, of Professor Chris Bailey-Kellogg He graduated from Boston with a B.S. in rollerblading, tennis, volleyball, Ioannis he was awarded a National and instrumentation design. at Purdue. He is interested University with a BS in Computer Mathematics. cooking, and traveling. Giannakakis Science Foundation Graduate He is currently working on the in biological networks and Engineering in 1995, and She has worked graduated Fellowship, he enrolled in the project ‘In vivo imaging system is currently working with Dr. completed his MS in Computer as a network Wonsang Song from National computer science graduate pro- for minimally invasive surgery’ Christina Leslie and Professor Science at Columbia this past research engineer at NTT Labs. graduated from Technical gram at Columbia in the fall of in the Robotics Lab. Chris Wiggins, in collaboration spring. Chris worked as a soft- for over ten years, and visited Seoul National University of 2005. He is currently working with Dr. Chris Sander’s lab at ware architect and consultant Columbia in 2005. She started as University Athens (NTUA) with Professor Eitan Grinspun as Bert C. Huang Memorial Sloan-Kettering, on for six years; prior to studying a Ph.D. student in Spring 2006. with a B.S. with a Diploma part of the Columbia Computer graduated studying microRNA regulation. at Columbia he taught English Her main research interests in Computer in Electrical and Computer Graphics Group. His research from Brandeis essay writing for two years in are VoIP network and security. Engineering in Engineering in July 2006. He interests include physical simu- University Jong Yul Kim Seoul, South Korea. Chris enjoys She is currently working with February 1997. started as a Ph.D. student at lation, computer animation, and with a B.S. came to teaching and was the winner Professor Schulzrinne’s group. He worked as a system engineer Columbia University in Fall computer graphics. in Computer Columbia of the Andrew P. Kosoresow and programmer in Korea from 2006. Ioannis’s main research Science and University from Memorial Award for Excellence Kristen Parton 1997-2004, did an M.S. in interests are Algorithms and Steve a B.A. in South Korea in Teaching and Service in 2006. graduated Computer Science at Columbia Databases. He is currently Henderson Philosophy in 2004. He com- after graduating from Stanford from 2004-2006, and started working with Professor started his pleted an M.S. at Columbia in from Seoul Richard Neill University as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2006. Kenneth Ross’s group in Ph.D. studies February 2006. Bert’s research National holds a B.S and with a B.S. Wonsang’s main research Database systems. at Columbia in interests are in the field of University with a B.S. in M.S. in Electrical in Computer interests are multimedia net- Fall 2006. He Machine Learning. Currently, Computer Science and Engineering and Science in June working, location-based services Dana Glasner is working with he is working in the Center Engineering in February 2005. has held a tech- 2003. She and distributed systems. He graduated Professor Feiner for Computational Learning He finished his M.S. in nology position worked on Intelligent Tutoring is currently working on the from Yeshiva in the Computer Graphics and Systems and in the Machine Computer Science in May at Cablevision Systems at Stottler Henke NG911 project with Professor University User Interface Lab. Steve joins Learning Laboratory. 2006, and started his Ph.D. Systems Associates, Inc. from 2003- Henning Schulzrinne. with a B.A. Columbia from the faculty of program in Fall 2006. Since the Corporation. He started his 2005, then on multilingual web in Computer the Military Maritza Johnson summer of 2005, Jong Yul has Ph.D. in Fall 2006 working in search at Yahoo! in 2006. She Hang Zhao Science and Academy at West Point, New graduated from been working with Professor Prof. Carloni’s research group. started as a Ph.D. student in the graduated Math in May York where he served as an the University Schulzrinne on the Next Richard’s main research interests Natural Language Processing from National 2006 and started as a Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Systems of San Diego Generation 9-1-1 project. are in distributed embedded group in Fall 2006, and will be University student at Columbia in Fall 2006. Engineering. Steve is an officer with a B.A. in systems, parallel architectures, working with Professor Kathy of Singapore Dana’s main research interests in the US Army, and holds an Computer Jae Woo Lee and grid computing. McKeown and Owen Rambow. with a B.S. are Cryptography, Learning MS in Systems Engineering Science in May graduated in Computer Theory, and Complexity Theory. from the University of Arizona, of 2005. Her from Columbia Ohan Oda Mariana Science in She is currently working and a BS in Computer Science research interests are user-cen- College with a received his B.S Raykova 2005. She joined the Computer with Professor Tal Malkin and from the United States Military tered design, human-computer B.A. in Physics from University graduated Science Department at Professor Rocco Servedio. Academy. His research inter- interaction, and security. She is in 1994. After of Wisconsin from Bard Columbia in Fall 2006 as a PhD ests are mobile augmented currently working with Professor working for a Madison with College with student. Hang’s main research Roni Goldenthal reality, information visualization, Steven Bellovin on designing a number of finan- double degrees a double B.A. interest is network security. is a Computer intelligent systems, social method of evaluating a financial cial software/service companies, in Computer in Computer She is currently working with Science PhD networks, large-scale database institute’s ability to authenticate he co-founded MyRisk.com in Science and Science and Professor Steven Bellovin on student at design, and optimization. itself to users in an online 1999, which was acquired by Computer Engineering in May Mathematics in 2006. Her the Policy Based Security the Hebrew environment. In the past she DirectAdvice.com in 2001. He 2005. He has worked at GE main research interests are in Management project collabo- University of has been active in the women came back to Columbia in 2004, Healthcare for two summers as the areas of cryptography and rating with IBM Research and Jerusalem, in computer science community received an M.S. in computer an intern. He started as a M.S security. She is working with other universities from the where his and plans to continue doing so science in 2006, and started student in Computer Science Moti Yung on cryptographic U.S. and the U.K. advisor is Professor Michel while at Columbia. as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2006 at Columbia in Fall 2005, and hash functions. Bercovier. His research interests under Professor Henning moved to the Ph.D program in

8 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 9 Department News & Awards

Alp Atici (Math) received the the design of low-power scala- ences. The conference had a Professor Eitan Grinspun Professor Julia Hirschberg, – Matching authors: permuta- the exploitation of the temporal E. M. Gold Award for ALT ble communication networks 28% acceptance rate; only received one of three “best along with Martin Jansche tional clustering methods and evolutionary aspects of video 2006 (the 17th International for multi-core systems-on-chip. two such awards were given paper” awards at EURO- (of the Columbia Center permutationally invariant kernels contents. It will build a retrieval Conference on Algorithmic The project is funded by the out for the 800+ submissions GRAPHICS 2006 in early for Computational Learning are used to compute the likeli- workbench with video mining, Learning Theory, held in NSF Foundations of Computing they had this year. September. EUROGRAPHICS Systems) and colleagues at hood the same person wrote a topic tracking, and cross-linking Barcelona in October). This Processes and Artifacts (CPA) is the European cousin of SIG- UIUC, received an NSF grant given publication or text. capabilities, along with other award is given to the best Cluster; in 2005 the NSF CPA Professor Stephen Edwards GRAPH and one of the most to improve the tutoring of – Matching text and multimedia video understanding services. student paper at the confer- cluster received 532 proposals was awarded an NSF grant important computer graphics the rhythmic and intonational documents: permutational Professor Angelos Keromytis ence; the award is for the and funded approximately 10% titled “SHIM: Developing conferences. The paper, titled aspect of language (prosody) algorithms and permutationally chaired the security tracks for paper “Learning Unions of of them. Embedded Systems with “Computing discrete shape for those learning Chinese and invariant kernels to perform the 2007 World Wide Web $\omega(1)$-Dimensional Deterministic Concurrency”: operators on general meshes,” English as a second language. text, image and word matchings conference (WWW) and for the Rectangles” which is Professor Luca Carloni has The SHIM model of computa- was co-authored by two NYU Prosody is an integral part of of descriptions of people to 2007 International Conference co-authored by Professor become a member of the tion provides deterministic students, Yotam Gingold and human communication, but known individuals in a database. on Distributed Computing Rocco Servedio. MARCO-sponsored, multi- concurrency with reliable Jason Reisman, and Prof. one that second-language – Matching social networks and institution Gigascale System communication, simplifying Denis Zorin (NYU). Eurographics learners rarely learn. Topic graphs: social network matching Systems (ICDCS). Professors Steven Bellovin Research Center (GSRC) where validation because behavior considered 246 submitted shifts, contrastive focus, and tools from permutational algo- Ph.D. students Homin Lee and and Henning Schulzrinne will he joins the “Core Design is reproducible. Based on papers, and accepted 42. even simple question/state- rithms which find a subnetwork Andrew Wan received the participate in the International Technology for Complex asynchronous concurrent ment distinctions, cannot be in a larger network that has a Mark Fulk Best Student Paper Technology Alliance. The Heterogeneous Systems” processes that communicate Professor Eitan Grinspun was recognized or produced in desired topology. award at the 19th Annual alliance will perform research theme. The Microelectronics through rendezvous channels, awarded an NSF grant together many languages without an Conference on Learning Theory in the four areas of network Advanced Research Corporation SHIM can handle control, with Professors Karamcheti and Professors Gail Kaiser, Angelos understanding of their prosody. (COLT 2006), held in Pittsburgh, theory, security across system (MARCO) funds and operates multi- and variable-rate Zorin at NYU. The three-year Keromytis and Sal Stolfo won However, ‘translating’ between PA, in July. The award is for of systems, sensor information university-based research dataflow, and data-dependent project will develop parallel a National Science Foundation the prosody of one language their paper titled “DNF are processing and delivery and centers in microelectronics decisions. architectures for interactive sci- (NSF) four-year grant as part and that of another is a little- Teachable in the Average distributed coalition planning technology. Its charter initiative, entific computing, with a focus of the CyberTrust program to studied phenomenon. This Case,” which is joint work with and decision making. the Focus Center Research Members of the department’s on engineering and biomedical study collaborative self-healing research addresses the Professor Rocco Servedio. Program (FCRP), is designed computer graphics group were design-space exploration. systems. Collaborative Self- Professors Steven Bellovin ‘prosody translation’ problem for COLT is the top conference in to expand pre-competitive, extremely successful in the Specific points of focus include healing Systems (COSS) is a and Sal Stolfo, together Mandarin Chinese and English computational learning theory, cooperative, long-range applied upcoming SIGGRAPH 2006 (1) higher-level user control of new paradigm for protecting with Professor Sean Smith of second-language learners by with more than 100 papers microelectronics research at conference, having 10 papers the overall study (as opposed software systems. Software Dartmouth, received a grant identifying correspondences submitted per year for the last U.S. universities. Each Focus accepted, the most from any to individual experiments); (2) monocultures are widely used from ARO to organize and run between prosodic phenomena several years. Center targets research in a single institution in the last five reuse of data from prior experi- applications that share common a Workshop on Insider Threat years. SIGGRAPH is the most in each language that convey particular area of expertise. ments in carrying forward new vulnerabilities. Hence, any Ph.D. student Jackson Research. The workshop will prestigious conference for similar meanings. The GSRC Focus Center brings computations; (3) dynamic man- attack that exploits one instance Liscombe won one of three be held in Washington, DC in computer graphics; the 2006 together 41 faculty from 17 agement of system resources Professor Julia Hirschberg of a vulnerable application pro- “best student paper” awards June 2007. conference took place in American universities to focus by relying on a tighter coupling was featured in an article in vides the means for wide-spread at the INTERSPEECH 2006 Boston, Massachusetts in Professor Steven Bellovin on pertinent problems the between application and system the International Herald Tribune damage. The emerging concept conference. The paper was August 2006. A total of 86 was interviewed by Robert semiconductor industry faces software; and (4) software reuse on text-to-speech technology. of collaborative security, wherein co-authored by postdoctoral papers were accepted from Siegel on NPR’s popular pro- in the next decade in the areas based on common component independent but cooperative researcher Jennifer Venditti 474 submissions. Authors from Professors Julia Hirschberg gram “All Things Considered” of system design, integration, architecture (CCA) compliance entities form a group to improve and Professor Julia Hirschberg. Columbia University include and Jason Nieh, along with in May. Steven discussed the test, and verification. Professor and standardization of a more their individual security, provides The paper was titled “Detecting Prof. Ravi Ramamoorthi, Professor Cliff Stein (joint with National Security Agency’s Carloni will work on the permeable system-/solver-level the opportunity to exploit the Question-Bearing Turns in Prof. Shree Nayar, Prof. IEOR), received the prestigious efforts to analyze the huge development of correct-by- interface. The architecture will be homogeneity of a software Spoken Tutorial Dialogues.” Eitan Grinspun, and Prof. IBM Faculty Award, reflecting databases of domestic phone construction methodologies evaluated on real-world biomed- monoculture for collective and INTERSPEECH is the annual Peter Belhumeur, along their technical achievements calls turned over to the NSA by for the integrated design and ical applications, with a specific mutual protection. conference of the International with their graduate students. and close interaction with IBM phone companies. validation of robust gigascale focus on natural incorporation Speech Communication More information about the researchers. Professor John Kender, togeth- systems. The ultimate goal of existing simulation, solver, Association (http://www.isca- Columbia Vision + Graphics er with Shih-Fu Chang of Professor Steven Bellovin was of this project is to assist and domain-specific codes. Professor To ny Jebara received speech.org), which has about Center can be found at Columbia EE and Tom Huang interviewed for an NY1 TV article engineering teams coping with his third KDD grant, titled 1500 members. The conference http://www.cs.columbia.edu/cvgc/ Computer Science PhD student of UIUC, is a co-PI on a three on security and terrorism. the complexity of gigascale “Learning to Match People, is held annually, this year in Alex Haubold won the Best year, ten senior researcher system design by addressing Multimedia and Graphs via Pittsburgh. There are usually Matthew Burnside, Jae Woo The paper “To Search or to Poster Award for this year’s grant headed by PI John Smith two critical challenges: how to Permutation”.This proposal about 1100 attendees and Lee, Christian Murphy and Crawl? Towards a Query IEEE International Conference of IBM, funded out of the reduce the design productivity undertakes a novel research approximately 1000 submis- Joshua Reich and were named Optimizer for Text-Centric Tasks,” and Multimedia Expo (ICME’06). Disruptive Technologies Office gap and how to handle the direction that explores matching sions. ISCA is one of the major as “extraordinary TAs” for the by Panos Ipeirotis, Eugene This annual conference, one of as part of their Video Analysis many sources of design vari- and permutation within statisti- speech science and technology Fall 2005 semester, based on Agichtein, Pranay Jain, and the most significant and largest and Content Extraction (VACE) ability introduced by nanometer cal learning. These research organizations internationally. the evaluation of students in Professor Luis Gravano, in the area of multimedia, program. The project pursues technology processes. received the “Best Paper” tools have applications in their classes. Congratulations featured over 270 posters. research on statistical modeling Professors Vishal Misra Award at the SIGMOD 2006 national security as a way to to our outstanding TAs! Cristian Soviani, Olivier Alex, who is Professor John techniques that will characterize (Computer Science), Dan Conference. SIGMOD is one identify and match people Ta r dieu, and Professor Kender’s student, won for his video contents in large semantic Rubenstein (Electrical Professor Luca Carloni, along of the two premier database from text and multimedia and Stephen Edwards won a paper reporting on research spaces, using open source Engineering and CS) and Ed with Professor Ken Shepard conferences and is highly discover links between them. best paper award at DATE he did as part of his IBM intern- international news broadcasts. Coffman (EE and CS), together of the Electrical Engineering selective; the acceptance rate More specifically, this proposal (Design Automation and Test ship last summer: “Semantic It emphasizes cross-domain and with Professor Predrag department, was awarded a for SIGMOD 2006 was lower addresses the following key in Europe), one of the major Multimedia Retrieval using cross-cultural scalability, faster Jelenkovic and Professor Mor three-year NSF grant to study than 15%. application areas: design automation confer- Lexical Query Expansion and than real-time performance, and Harchol-Balter (of CMU) won a Model-Based Reranking”.

10 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 11 Department News & Awards (continued) Student News highly-competitive NSF grant and multithreaded processors. and Communication in to study resource sharing and This project, titled “Cache-Aware MANETs”. Through this grant, “What I did with my summer vacation” allocation on large server farms. Database Systems on Modern they will develop a new, behav- A wide variety of systems, Multithreading Processors”, ior- based mechanism for including web farms, virtual studies how to best utilize the authenticating and authorizing After a busy year in machines, multi-tasking OSes, resources available in modern new nodes in wireless classrooms and labs GRID computing systems, processors in the development MANETs. Rather than only and sensor networks improve of database system software. granting access to a network, at Columbia, CUCS their accessibility, availability, A primary objective is avoiding or to services on a network, students branched resilience and fairness by cache interference between by means of an authenticated out to a wide range ‘sharing’ resources across threads in multithreaded and identity or a qualified role, they of interesting jobs the consumers they support. multi-core processors, so that propose to require nodes to However, research that performance scales well as also exchange a model of their and internships over explores how to share the number of cores/threads behavior to grant access and to the summer. Here are resources generally derives increases. A variety of tech- assess the legitimacy of their brief snapshots of point solutions, where different niques are considered, including subsequent communication. what a few computer resource/consumer configura- multi-threaded algorithm design, When a node requests access, tions require separately- threads explicitly devoted to it provides its pre-computed science students did designed sharing mechanisms. resource management, and egress behavior model to with their summers This project seeks to develop scheduling algorithms that are another node who may grant away from campus. and analyze Adaptive Sharing aware of thread interference it access to some service. An image from the intelligent movie director, courtesy Institute for Creative Technologies. Mechanisms (ASMs) in which patterns. Simulations and The receiver compares the the mechanism used to share implementations on real hard- requestor’s egress model to its Marc Eaddy spent his summer Ph.D. student David Elson Joseph Kaptur (SEAS ‘08) resources adapts dynamically ware are used to measure the own ingress model to determine as an intern at Microsoft spent the summer at spent his summer in Denver, to both the set of available effectiveness of each approach. whether the new device con- Research in Redmond, WA. the Institute for Creative Colorado. In addition to resources and the current Project-related information can forms to its expected behavior. He worked with Manuel Technologies, a center for camping and hiking, he needs of the consumers, be found at http://www.cs.columbia. Access rights are thus granted Fadrich on an important virtual reality and computer worked for a company named such that the system is truly edu/~kar/fastqueryproj.html or denied based upon the level problem for Microsoft: porting simulation research at Decisioneering, which makes autonomic. The grant extends This project was one of only of agreement between the software libraries, like .NET, the University of Southern Crystal Ball, an add-in for over three years and is part of eleven funded in the Database two models, and the level of to different platforms such as California. At ICT, David Microsoft Excel that allows a the NSF Computer Systems Management Systems program risk the recipient is willing to watches, cell phones, PDAs, worked under Dr. Mark Riedl user to turn any spreadsheet Research (CSR) program. Only in 2006 and lasts through manage. The second use of and non-Windows operating and Julia Kim, who are into a Monte Carlo simulation. approximately 10% of all grant August 2008. the exchanged models is to systems. He developed experts in his research area Joseph spent most of his time applications were funded. validate active communication Professor Henning Schulzrinne automated pruning algorithms of computational narrative there writing code that would after access has been granted. Professors Vishal Misra and and Professor Ram Dantu (U. that tailor the library to the reasoning. As part of a larger allow any user of Microsoft As a result, MANET nodes, will Dan Rubenstein won a three- North Texas) have received a target platform by removing project aiming to automate Project (a scheduling tool have greater confidence that year NSF CyberTrust grant on two-year grant from the National extraneous and unsupported the creation of animated for creating project plans, a new node is not malicious; network control plane security. Science Foundation, as part of features. In the process, he narrative cinema for case- Gantt charts, and resource if an already admitted node Their proposal seeks to further the CyberTrust program, to learned a lot about software based leadership training, schedules) to use the power starts misbehaving, other development of a methodology study methods to prevent unso- dependencies, , David built a “robotic movie of Monte Carlo simulation to MANET nodes will quickly for measuring the inherent licited calls in VoIP systems. and Open Classes. He took director” capable of realizing apply probability distributions detect and evict it. security of the control plane The research will focus on advantage of Seattle’s gorgeous movie scripts as aesthetically to task durations, and be able component of existing and using trust paths to determine Professors Joseph Traub and summer weather (no joke!) coherent films by intelligently to say precisely how likely a future routing protocols. The whether unknown callers are Henryk Wozniakowski were to enjoy tennis, volleyball, blocking virtual actors and project is to be on time, two approach has a significant likely to be telemarketers or awarded a three-year grant Bill Gates’s lawn, and a cruise placing cameras in a 3D world. weeks late, etc. The tool he theoretical component: it other spammers. Trust paths from the NSF titled “Quantum sponsored by MSR. built is now in use at Fortune involves looking at general capture transitive trust in a and Classical Complexity of 500 companies and is being classes of routing protocols friend-of-a-friend model, with Multivariate Problems.” This marketed to the Navy. and showing how they can trust established by having marks 36 years in which NSF be analyzed for their ability a person send email or call has funded every proposal to monitor themselves. another person. Such trust Professor Traub has submitted; paths are suitable for low-risk this may be a record for the Professor Shree Nayar’s work decisions, such as whether to field of Computer Science. was profiled in an August 2006 accept an email or phone call, Professors Traub and IEEE Computer Magazine rather than high-risk decisions Wozniakowski also received article (cover feature) on such as whether to loan money additional funds from DARPA’S Computational Photography. or reveal private information. QuIST (Quantum Information Science and Technology) even Professor Kenneth Ross was Professors Sal Stolfo and though that program has ended. awarded an NSF grant to study Angelos Keromytis were the design of database systems awarded a DARPA grant titled software on modern multicore “Behavior-based Access Control

12 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 13 Alumni News Recent & Upcoming PhD Defenses

Regina Barzilay (Ph.D. ‘02), German Creamer (Ph.D. ‘06) Blair MacIntyre (Ph.D.’ 99) was of the ACL, the international Debra Cook tions and strong pseudorandom make instantaneous investment now an assistant professor of finished his dissertation under awarded tenure in the College organization for Computational Advisor: Angelos Keromytis permutations in the range of b to decisions. Machine learning electrical engineering and com- Prof. Sal Stolfo. He is working of Computing at . Linguistics and Natural Elastic Block Ciphers 2b bits from round functions that techniques help investors and puter science at Massachusetts in a management position at Language Processing, and will are independently chosen pseudo- corporations recognize new busi- Smaranda Muresan (Ph.D. ‘06) Institute of Technology, was one American Express Corporation. be the program chair for the Abstract: Standard block ciphers random permutations on b bits. ness opportunities or potential finished her dissertation on of five recipients of the highly upcoming US Olympiad in are designed around one or a corporate problems in these mar- Min-Yen Kan (SEAS B.S. ‘96, ‘Learning Constraint-based prestigious Microsoft Research Computational Linguistics. He is small number of block sizes. From kets. With time, these techniques Ph.D. ‘02) married Alicia Ang in Grammars from Representative New Faculty Fellowships. on leave in the 2006-7 academic both a practical and a theoretical German help the financial market become a civil ceremony at the Raffles Examples.’ She was advised Because new faculty members year and is spending some of perspective, the question of how Creamer better regulated and more stable. Hotel in Singapore on December by Professors Judith Klavans are essential to the future of that time at Columbia. to efficiently support a range Also, corporations could save 23, 2005. Min is currently and Kathy McKeown and Dr. Advisors: academic computing, Microsoft of block sizes is of interest. In significant amount of resources an assistant professor at Owen Rambow. Smaranda is Jonathan Rosenberg (Ph.D. Sal Stolfo and Research honors early-career applications, the length of the if they can automate certain the National University of now working as a postdoc with ‘01) was named a Cisco professors who demonstrate data to be encrypted is often corporate finance functions such Singapore, in the Department Phil Resnik at the University Fellow. The Cisco Fellow Using Boosting the drive and creativity to devel- not a multiple of the supported as planning and trading. op original research while con- of Computer Science, of Maryland. program was created to honor block size. This results in the use for Automated researching digital libraries. Cisco’s most distinguished Trading and Planning Results: This dissertation offers a tinually advancing the state of Ani Nenkova (Ph.D. ‘05) started of plaintext-padding schemes engineers; the title of ‘Cisco novel approach to using boosting the art of computing. Regina is Rui Kuang (Ph.D. ‘06) finished a tenure-track faculty position at that impose computational and Abstract: The problem: Much Fellow’ is the company’s as a predictive and interpretative focusing her research on com- his dissertation under Dr. the University of Pennsylvania. space overheads. Furthermore, of finance theory is based on highest honor for engineering tool for problems in finance. putational modeling of linguistic Christina Leslie of the Center a variable-length block cipher the efficient market hypothesis. excellence. Only ten Cisco Even more, we demonstrate phenomena. She is exploring for Computational Learning Dragomir R. Radev (Ph.D. ‘99) ideally provides a variable-length According to this hypothesis, employees have been named how boosting can support the the ability of a computer to Systems. He is now an has received tenure at the pseudorandom permutation the prices of financial assets, as Cisco fellows out of nearly automation of strategic planning summarize information found in Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, where and strong pseudorandom per- such as stocks, incorporate all 40,000 employees worldwide. and trading functions. multiple documents that contain University of Minnesota. he is now an Associate mutation, which are theoretical information that may affect their Professor of Information related information, such as Ke Wang (Ph.D. ‘06) finished counterparts of practical block future performance. However, the Many of the recent bankruptcy Jonathan Liu (CC ‘04) writes: and Computer Science and news articles covering the same her dissertation under Prof. ciphers and correspond to ideal translation of publicly available scandals in publicly held US ‘Currently I am working at Engineering. He works on text event. This will help readers find Sal Stolfo in 2006. She is properties for a block cipher. information into predictions of companies such as Enron and PricewaterhouseCoopers doing mining with applications in areas meaning in the ever-increasing working in the infrastructure future performance is far from WorldCom are inextricably linked consulting work. My work is like computer science, bioinfor- The focus of our research is the body of information available and security group at Google trivial. Making such predictions to the conflict of interest between primarily accounting-based matics, and political science. design and analysis of a method today. Regina graduated from on the West Coast. is the livelihood of stock traders, shareholders (principals) and consulting and usually involves He recently shared the 2006 for creating variable-length block Columbia University in 2002, ciphers from existing fixed-length market analysts, and the like. managers (agents). We evaluate where she was advised by a technology aspect. Still Gosnell Prize for Excellence in Clearly, the efficient market this conflict in the case of Latin keeping in touch with Political Methodology; the prize block ciphers. As the heart of the Professor Kathy McKeown. method, we introduce the concept hypothesis is only an approxima- American and US companies. In Jonathan Tse (CS, SEAS ‘04), is awarded for the best work in tion which ignores the cost of the first part of this dissertation, Deborah Cook (Ph.D. ‘06) Tim Soohoo (CS, SEAS ‘04), political methodology presented of an elastic block cipher, which refers to stretching the supported producing accurate predictions. we use Adaboost to analyze the finished her dissertation under and Jeff Eng (CS, SEAS ‘04)!’ at any political science confer- impact of corporate governance block size of a block cipher to any Markets are becoming more Prof. Angelos Keromytis. ence during the preceding year. variables on performance. In this length up to twice the original efficient and more accessible She has taken a position with He was elected as secretary respect, we present an algorithm block size while incurring a because of the use of ever faster Bell Labs. that calculates alternating deci- computational workload that is methods for communicating sion trees (ADTs), ranks variables proportional to the block size. and analyzing financial data. according to their level of impor- We create a structure, referred Algorithms developed in machine tance, and generates representa- to as the elastic network, that learning can be used to automate tive ADTs. We develop a board uses the round function from any parts of this translation process. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) based existing block cipher in a manner In other words, we can now use on these representative ADTs that allows the properties of the machine learning algorithms to which is part of the process to round function to be maintained analyze vast amounts of informa- automate the planning functions. and results in the security of the tion and compile them to predict elastic version of a block cipher the performance of companies, In the second part of this disser- being directly related to that of stocks, or even market analysts. In tation we present three main the original version. By forming financial terms, we would say that algorithms to improve forecasting a reduction between the elastic such algorithms discover ineffi- and automated trading. First, we and original versions, we prove ciencies in the current market. introduce a link mining algorithm that the elastic version of a These discoveries can be used to using a mixture of economic cipher is secure against round- make a profit and, in turn, reduce and social network indicators key recovery attacks if the original the market inefficiencies or sup- to forecast earnings surprises, cipher is secure against such port strategic planning processes. and cumulative abnormal return. attacks. We illustrate the method Second, we propose a trading Relevance: Currently, the major by creating elastic versions of four algorithm for short-term technical stock exchanges such as NYSE existing block ciphers. In addition, trading. The algorithm was tested and NASDAQ are transforming the elastic network provides a in the context of the Penn-Lehman their markets into electronic new primitive structure for use in Automated Trading Project (PLAT) financial markets. Players in symmetric-key cipher design. It competition using the Microsoft these markets must process allows for the creation of variable- stock. The algorithm was prof- large amounts of information and length pseudorandom permuta- itable during the competition.

14 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 15 Recent & Upcoming PhD Defenses (continued)

Third, we present a multi-stock sequence motifs, which can cor- variety of applications starting In this dissertation, we have imple- using existing protocols. We from reverse engineering to Ke Wang malicious events. Both PAYL and automated trading system that respond to meaningful structural from text mining and question mented a system that represents describe the architecture and cultural heritage preservation. Advisor: Anagram create models of site- includes a machine learning features in the protein data. answering, to natural language an experimental platform for all the implementation of our Session These systems employ a range Salvatore Stolfo specific normal network applica- algorithm that makes the predic- interfaces to databases. theoretical algorithms. The system Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based finder to acquire the geometry tion payload as n-grams in a fully • Protein database search for Network tion, a weighting algorithm that homology detection. We propose Constraint-based grammar for- has the practical advantage of enterprise Internet telephony information and a digital camera automatic, unsupervised and combines the experts, and a risk malisms have been widely used implementing sound grammar revi- architecture known as Columbia to measure color detail. But Payload-based very efficient fashion. PAYL com- a new network diffusion algo- Anomaly management layer that selects rithm, called MotifProp, based on for deep language understanding. sion and grammar merging, which InterNet Extensible Multimedia bringing together a set of range putes, during a training phase, a only the strongest prediction and Yet, one serious obstacle for their allow an incremental coverage Architecture (CINEMA). It consists scans and color images to pro- Detection and profile of byte (1-gram) frequency a protein-motif network to detect Content-based Alert Correlation avoids trading when there is a more subtle sequence similarities use in real world applications is of natural language fragments. of a SIP registration and proxy duce an accurate and usable distribution and their standard history of negative performance. than a pairwise comparison that these formalisms have over- We have provided qualitative server, a multi-party conferencing model is still an area of research Abstract: Every computer on the deviation of the application pay- This algorithm was tested with method such as PSI-BLAST. looked an important requirement: evaluations that cover the follow- server, a gateway for interworking with many unsolved problems. Internet nowadays is a potential load flowing to a single host and 100 randomly selected S&P 500 Furthermore, top-ranked motifs learnability. Currently, there is ing issues: coverage of diverse SIP with ITU’s H.323, an interactive In this dissertation we present target for a new attack at any port. PAYL produces a very fine- stocks. We find that even an and motif-rich regions induced a poor match between these and complex linguistic phenom- voice response system and a new tools and methods for creat- moment. The pervasive use of sig- grained model that is conditioned efficient learning algorithm, such by the propagation are also help- grammar formalisms and existing ena; terminological knowledge multimedia mail server. CINEMA ing digital models from range and nature-based anti-virus scanners on payload length. Anagram as boosting, still requires powerful ful for discovering conserved learning methods. acquisition from natural language provides a distributed interopera- color images, with emphasis on and misuse detection Intrusion models high-order n-grams (n>1) control mechanisms in order structural components in remote This dissertation defines a new definitions; and question answer- ble architecture for collaboration large-scale outdoor scenes. First, Detection Systems have failed which capture the sequential to reduce unnecessary and homologies. type of constraint-based gram- ing, where the questions can using synchronous communica- we address the problem of range to provide adequate protection information between bytes. We unprofitable trades that increase mars, Lexicalized Well-Founded be vague or precise, while the tions like multimedia conferenc- and color image registration. In against a constant barrage of experimentally demonstrate that transaction costs. • Prediction of dihedral torsion answer is always precise at the ing, instant messaging, shared “zero-day” attacks. Such attacks both of these sensors are capa- angles of protein backbone. We Grammars (LWFGs), which allow this area, we introduce a semi- deep language understanding and concept level. web-browsing, and asynchronous automatic tool for range and color may cause denial-of-service, ble of detecting new attacks with apply kernel methods to accu- communications like discussion system crashes, or information high accuracy and low false pos- Rui Kuang rately predict protein backbone are learnable. These grammars image registration that makes use model both syntax and semantics forum, shared files, voice and of line-features to solve for the theft resulting in the loss of critical itive rates. Furthermore, in order Advisor: torsion angles, which helps to Kundan Singh video mails. It allows seamless information. In this thesis, we to detect the very early onset of substantially improve the model- and have constraints at the rule position and orientation of the dig- Christina Leslie level for semantic composition and Advisor: Henning integration with various commu- ital camera. This allows us to effi- consider the problem of detecting a worm attack, we designed an ing of local structures of protein nication means like telephone, IP ingress/egress correlation func- Inferring Protein semantic interpretation. The inter- Schulzrinne ciently register images of urban these “zero-day” intrusions quickly sequence segments, especially phone, web and electronic mail. tion that is built in the sensors to Structure with pretation constraints allow access Reliable, scenery. Secondly, we present a and accurately upon their very the loop conformations, which do quickly identify the worms’ initial Discriminative to meaning during language Scalable and We present two techniques for registration technique that uses first appearance. not form regular structures. propagation. The sensors are Learning and processing. They establish links Interoperable providing scalability and reliability the shadows cast by the sun as Most current Network Intrusion also designed to generate robust Network Diffusion • Segmentation of multi-domain between linguistic expressions Internet in SIP: server redundancy and a cues to find the correct camera Detection Systems (NIDS) use protein. We predict protein and the entities they refer to in the novel peer-to-peer architecture. pose, which we have successfully signatures of validated malicious Abstract: As the complete Telephony simple features, like packet domain labels and boundaries real world. We use an ontology- For the former, we use DNS- applied in the creation of a digital packet content. The technique genomes of more and more Abstract: The public switched headers and derived statistics simultaneously by solving an opti- based interpretation, proposing a based load sharing among multi- model of an archaeological exca- does not depend upon the detec- species become available, the telephone network (PSTN) pro- describing connections and mization problem, in which we use semantic representation that can ple distributed servers that use vation in Monte Polizzo, Sicily. We tion of probing or scanning large scale study of protein struc- vides ubiquitous availability and sessions (packet rates, bytes trained SVM domain recognizers be conceived as an ontology query backend SQL databases to main- also address the problem of how behavior or the prevalence of ture is becoming increasingly very high scalability of more than transferred, etc.) to detect unusual to find the optimal segmentation language. This representation is tain user records. Our two-stage to build seamless integrated tex- common probe payload, so it is important. Given the difficulty of a million busy hour call attempts events that indicate a system of a protein giving the largest sufficiently expressive to represent architecture scales linearly with ture maps from images that were especially useful for the detection experimental determination of per switch. If large carriers are is likely under attack. These sum of classification scores. many aspects of language and yet the number of servers. For the taken under different illumination of slow and stealthy worms. protein structure with X-Ray crys- to adopt Internet telephony, then approaches, however, are blind to sufficiently restrictive to support latter, we propose a peer-to-peer conditions. To achieve this we An often-cited weakness of tallography or nuclear magnetic Our work provides effective and Internet telephony servers should the content of the packet stream, learning and tractable inferences. Internet telephony architecture present two different solutions. anomaly detection systems is that resonance (NMR), much effort efficient solutions to these four offer at least similar quantifiable and in particular, the packet that supports basic user registra- The first one is to align all the they suffer from “mimicry attack”: over the past decade has been fundamental problems in protein In this thesis, we propose a new guarantees for scalability and reli- content delivered to a service that tion and call setup as well as images to the same illumination. clever adversaries may craft devoted to the development of structure inference, validated with relational learning model for ability using metrics such as call contains the data and code that advanced services such as offline For this, we have developed attacks that appear normal to an new machine learning approach- large scale experiments. The pro- LWFG induction. The learner is setup latency, server call handling exploits the vulnerable application message delivery, voice mail and a technique that computes a anomaly detector and hence will es for tackling the challenging posed new techniques, achieving presented with a small set of capacity, busy hour call arrivals, software. We conjecture that multi-party conferencing using relighting operator over the area go unnoticed as a false negative. problem of protein structure pre- high prediction performance positive representative examples, mean-time between failures and fast and efficient detectors that SIP. It interworks with server- of overlap of a pair of images, A mimicry attack against a site diction. In this thesis, we focus and capable of handling huge which consist of utterances mean-time to recover. This thesis focus on network packet content based SIP infrastructures. which we then use to relight defended by a content-based on applying several advanced datasets, will become increasingly paired with their semantic repre- presents a reliable, scalable and anomaly detection will improve the entire image. Our proposed anomaly detector can be executed learning techniques, including important in this post-genome era. sentations. We have proved that interoperable Internet telephony defenses and identify zero-day method can handle images with by an attacker by sniffing the kernel methods and network dif- the search space for grammar architecture for user registration, attacks far more accurately than Alejandro shadows and can effectively target site’s traffic flow, modeling fusion algorithms, to address four induction is a complete grammar call routing, conferencing and approaches that consider only Smaranda Troccoli remove the shadows from the the byte distributions of that flow, fundamental learning problems lattice, which allows the con- unified messaging using com- header information. Muresan image, if required. The second and blending their exploit with in protein structure inference: struction and generalization of modity hardware. The results Advisor: We therefore present two pay- Advisors: Owen the hypotheses and guarantees Peter Allen technique uses the ratio of two “normal” appearing byte padding. • Classification of a new protein extend beyond Internet telephony load-based anomaly detectors, Rambow and the uniqueness of the solution, images to factor out the diffuse To defend against such attacks, into its structural class. To detect to encompass multimedia com- New methods PAYL and Anagram, for intrusion Judith Klavans regardless of the order of learning. reflectance of an image from we further propose the tech- subtle sequence similarities munication in general. and tools for detection. They are designed to We have proved a learnability its illumination. We achieve this niques of randomized modeling between remote homologies, we Learning The architecture presented in this 3D-modeling detect attacks that are otherwise theorem and have provided without any light measuring and randomized testing. Under propose inexact matching string Constraint- thesis deals with two aspects: at of large scale outdoor scenes normal connections except that polynomial algorithms for LWFG device. By computing the actual randomized modeling/testing, kernels and profile-based string based Grammars from least PSTN-grade reliability and using range and color images the packets carry bad (anom- induction, proving their sound- reflectance we remove from the each sensor will randomly parti- kernels for use with the support Representative Examples scalability of the Internet teleph- Abstract: Systems for the creation alous) content indicative of a new ness. The learnability theorem images any effects of the illumi- tion the payload into several sub- vector machine (SVM). We also ony servers, and interoperable of photorealistic models using exploit. These payload-based Abstract: Computationally efficient extends significantly the class of nation, which then allows us to sequences, each of whom are use the kernel-based SVM clas- Internet telephony services such range scans and digital photo- anomaly sensors can augment models for natural language problems learnable by Inductive create new renderings under modeled/tested separately, thus sifier to extract discriminative as conferencing and voice mail graphs are becoming increasingly other sensors and enrich the understanding can have a wide Logic Programming methods. novel illumination conditions. building a “model/test diversity” popular in a wide range of fields, view of network traffic to detect

16 CS@CU FALL 2006 CS@CU FALL 2006 17 Recent & Upcoming PhD Defenses (continued) 2006 Technical Report Series on each host that is unknown to Weibin Zhao and uses adaptive overload con- The following technical CUCS-011-06 CUCS-019-06 CUCS-030-06 the mimicry attacker. This raises trol to automate the whole rescue reports were published Passive Duplicate Address A Survey of Security Issues Projection Volumetric Display Advisor: Henning Detection for Dynamic Host and Solutions in Presence using Passive Optical Scatterers the bar for the attackers as they Schulzrinne process. As a comprehensive through November 2006. have no means to know how and solution, DotSlash enables a web Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Vishal Kumar Singh, Henning Schulzrinne Shree K. Nayar, Vijay N. Anand Towards All 2006 reports are available Andrea G. Forte, Sangho Shin, where to pad the exploit code to site to build an adaptive distrib- CUCS-020-06 CUCS-031-06 appear normal within each ran- Autonomic uted web server system on the fly, at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/ Henning Schulzrinne research/publications Anagram: A Content Anomaly Complexity and tractability domly computed partition, even if Computing: replicate application programs CUCS-012-06 Detector Resistant to Mimicry Attack of the heat equation Service they have the global knowledge dynamically, and set up distributed CUCS-001-06 A Theory of Spherical Harmonic Ke Wang, Janak Parekh, Salvatore Stolfo Arthur G. Werschulz Discovery and Web Hotspot of the target site’s content flow. query result caching on demand. Converting from Spherical Identities for BRDF/Lighting Rescue DotSlash relieves a spectrum to Parabolic Coordinates Transfer and Image Consistency CUCS-021-06 CUCS-032-06 Finally, PAYL/Anagram’s speed A First Order Analysis of Lighting, Linear Approximation of and high detection rate makes Abstract: Autonomic computing is of bottlenecks ranging from Aner Ben-Artzi Dhruv Mahajan, Ravi Ramamoorthi, a vision that addresses the grow- access network bandwidth to Brian Curless Shading, and Shadows Optimal Attempt Rate in it valuable not only as a stand- Random Access Networks ing complexity of computing sys- web servers, application servers, CUCS-002-06 Ravi Ramamoorthi, Dhruv Mahajan, alone network-based sensor, but CUCS-013-06 Peter Belhumeur Hoon Chang, Vishal Misra, tems by enabling them to manage and database servers. Binary-level Function Profiling also as a host-based data-flow for Intrusion Detection and Using Angle of Arrival (Bearing) Dan Rubenstein classifier in an instrumented, themselves without direct human As part of DotSlash, we devel- Smart Error Virtualization Information in Network Localization CUCS-022-06 intervention. This thesis studies PBS: A Unified Priority-Based CUCS-033-06 fault-tolerant host-based envi- oped a prediction algorithm for Michael Locasto, Angelos Keromytis Tolga Eren, Walter Whiteley, ronment; this enables significant two related problems, service dis- estimating the upper bound of Peter N. Belhumeur CPU Scheduler Throughput and Fairness in covery and web hotspot rescue, CUCS-003-06 Hanhua Feng, Vishal Misra, Random Access Networks cost amortization and the possi- future web traffic volume, which CUCS-014-06 bility of a “symbiotic” feedback which can serve as a building is simple and effective for short- W3Bcrypt: Encryption Dan Rubenstein Hoon Chang, Vishal Misra, as a Stylesheet PalProtect: A Collaborative Security Dan Rubenstein loop that can improve accuracy block and a prototype for auto- term bursty web traffic. This CUCS-023-06 Angelos Stavrou, Michael Locasto, Approach to Comment Spam and reduce false positive rates nomic networking and distributed algorithm provides insight into SIMPLEstone–Benchmarking CUCS-034-06 systems, respectively. Angelos D. Keromytis Benny Wong, Michael Locasto, over time. characterizing traffic of web Angelos D. Keromytis Presence Server Performance A Framework for Quality Assurance Besides building stand-alone Service discovery allows end hotspots, and is useful for web CUCS-004-06 Vishal Kumar Singh, Henning Schulzrinne of Machine Learning Applications systems to discover desired serv- server overload prevention. Grouped Distributed Queues: CUCS-015-06 Christian Murphy, Gail Kaiser, anomaly sensors, we also Streak Seeding Automation CUCS-024-06 demonstrate a collaborative ices on networks automatically, Distributed Queue, Proportional Marta Arias Share Multiprocessor Scheduling Using Silicon Tools Speculative Execution as an security strategy whereby differ- eliminating administrative config- Operating System Service CUCS-035-06 Bogdan Caprita, Jason Nieh, Atanas Georgiev, Sergey Vorobiev, ent hosts may exchange payload uration. We made four enhance- Debugging Woven Code Clifford Stein William Edstrom, Ting Song, Michael Locasto, Angelos Keromytis alerts to increase the accuracy of ments to the Service Location Andrew Laine, John Hunt, Peter Allen Marc Eaddy, Alfred Aho, Weiping Hu, the local sensor and reduce false Protocol (SLP): mesh enhance- CUCS-005-06 CUCS-025-06 Paddy McDonald, Julian Burger positives. We propose and exam- ment, remote service discovery, Theoretical Bounds on Control-Plane CUCS-016-06 Exploiting Temporal Coherence for ine several new approaches to preference filters, and global Self-Monitoring in Routing Protocols Bloodhound: Searching Out Pre-computation Based Rendering CUCS-037-06 Specifying Confluent Processes enable the sharing of suspicious attributes. These enhancements Raj Kumar Rajendran, Vishal Misra, Malicious Input in Network Flows Ryan Overbeck for Automatic Repair Validation Olivier Tardieu, Stephen A. Edwards payloads via privacy-preserving improve SLP efficiency and scal- Dan Rubenstein CUCS-026-06 technologies. We detail the work ability, and enable SLP to better Michael Locasto, Matthew Burnside, CUCS-007-06 Angelos D. Keromytis Privacy-Preserving Payload-Based CUCS-038-06 we have done with PAYL and support new and advanced dis- Correlation for Accurate Malicious MacShim: Compiling MATLAB covery scenarios. The SLP mesh Using an External DHT as Anagram to support generalized a SIP Location Service CUCS-017-06 Traffic Detection to a Scheduling-Independent enhancement (mSLP), remote Concurrent Language payload correlation and signature Kundan Singh, Henning Schulzrinne Quantifying Application Behavior Janak Parekh, Ke Wang, Salvatore Stolfo generation without releasing service discovery, and preference Space for Detection and Self-Healing Neesha Subramaniam, Ohan Oda, identifiable payload data. The filters are now experimental RFCs CUCS-008-06 Michael Locasto, Angelos Stavrou, CUCS-027-06 Stephen A. Edwards important principle demonstrated (Request for Comments). We Rigid Formations with Leader- Gabriela G. Cretu, Angelos D. Keromytis, Feasibility of Voice over IP expect that similar techniques Follower Architecture Salvatore J. Stolfo on the Internet CUCS-039-06 is that correlation of multiple A VoIP Privacy Mechanism and its can be applied to other service Tolga Eren, Walter Whiteley, Alex Sherman, Jason Nieh, Yoav Freund alerts can identify true positives CUCS-018-06 Application in VoIP Peering for discovery systems. Peter N. Belhumeur from the set of anomaly alerts, Seamless Layer-2 Handoff CUCS-028-06 Voice Service Provider Topology reducing incorrect decisions and During the development of mSLP, CUCS-009-06 using Two Radios in IEEE 802.11 Practical Preference Relations and Identity Hiding producing accurate mitigation we designed selective anti- A Runtime Adaptation Framework for Wireless Networks for Large Data Sets Charles Shen, Henning Schulzrinne against zero-day attacks. entropy, a generic mechanism for Native C and Bytecode Applications Sangho Shin, Andrea G. Forte, Kenneth Ross, Peter Stuckey, A new wave of cleverly crafted high availability partial replica- Rean Griffith, Gail Kaiser Henning Schulzrinne Amelie Marian tion. Traditional anti-entropy only polymorphic attacks has sub- CUCS-010-06 CUCS-029-06 stantially complicated the task supports full replication. We Measurement and Evaluation of enhanced it to support partial Evaluating an Evaluation Method: of automatically generating The Pyramid Method Applied ENUM Server Performance “string-based” signatures to replication by allowing two to 2003 Document Understanding Charles Shen, Henning Schulzrinne filter newly discovered zero-day replicas to selectively reconcile Conference (DUC) Data attacks. Although the payload inconsistent data in a session. Rebecca Passonneau anomaly detection techniques Web hotspots are short-term dra- we present are able to detect matic load spikes. We developed these attacks, correlating the DotSlash, a self-configuring and individual packet content deliv- scalable rescue system for han- ering distinct instances of the dling web hotspots effectively. same polymorphic attack are DotSlash works autonomously. It shown to have limited value, uses service discovery to allocate requiring new approaches for resources dynamically from a generating robust signatures. server pool distributed globally,

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NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY VOL.3 NO.1 FALL 2006 CUCS colloquium information is available at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/lectures Columbia Computer Visit the CUCS alumni portal at http://alum.cs.columbia.edu Science Faculty in the National Academies Alfred V. Aho Stephen M. Bellovin

Columbia University in the City of New York Department of Computer Science NON-PROFIT ORG. 1214 Amsterdam Avenue U.S. POSTAGE Mailcode: 0401 PAID Zvi Galil Edward H. Shortliffe Joseph F. Traub Vladimir Vapnik New York, NY 10027-7003 NEW YORK, NY PERMIT 4332 At this year’s computer science department Alfred V. Aho is Lawrence Vice President, Director, ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED “Hello Meeting,” members of the faculty Gussman Professor of department head, and member of technical staff. This is the recalled the early days of the department Computer Science and Vice Chair for Undergraduate lab that invented UNIX, C and when the same meeting could be held on Education in the Computer C++. Al was also the General the first floor of Mudd, in the small area that Science Department. He Manager of the Information is now used for making sandwiches in the served as Chair of the Sciences and Technologies Carleton Lounge. Since then, the computer department from 1995 to Research Laboratory at 1997 and in the spring of Bellcore (now Telcordia). science department has grown both in size 2003. He was elected to the Professor Aho is the “A” in and prominence. The faculty now includes U.S. National Academy of AWK, a widely used pattern- six members of the National Academies: Engineering for contributions matching language (you can Al Aho, Steven M. Bellovin, Zvi Galil, Ted to the fields of algorithms think of AWK as the initial and programming tools. Shortliffe, Joe Traub, and Vladimir Vapnik. pure version of perl). “W” is Peter Weinberger and “K” Here is a brief overview of their achievements Professor Aho received his B.A.Sc in Engineering Physics is Brian Kernighan. Al also and contributions. from the University of Toronto wrote the initial versions of and a Ph.D. in Electrical the string pattern-matching Engineering/Computer Science programs egrep and fgrep from Princeton University. that first appeared on UNIX. Prior to his current position at His current research interests Columbia, Professor Aho served include quantum computing, in many capacities at the programming languages, Computing Sciences Research compilers, and algorithms. Center at Bell Labs, such as (continued on next page)

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