conduconduit t! Volume 1, Number 1 Department of Computer Science March, 1992 Brown University to purchase our first workstations and at a time when this new technology was just Development of the Industrial emerging. In 1982 and 1988 we received Partners Program NSF research infrastructure grants that let us provide workstations and staff support for faculty and student research. These grants In March, 1989, ten years after the founding of helped us build our enviable reputation for the Department, we introduced our Industrial the creative use of this technology. Our visi- Partners Program (IPP). Those first ten years bility in this area led to a number of multi- were challenging and rewarding. Our efforts million dollar equipment grants and dis- earned us an excellent reputation, reflected in a counts from Apollo Computer, Digital gifted faculty, talented students, and superb Equipment Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, administrative and technical staffs. During this Sun Microsystems, and Xerox. period we also acquired superior computing equipment and excellent space in the hand- The Department moved to the new Thomas J. some new Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Center for Watson, Sr. Center for Information Technol- Information Technology. The time had arrived ogy (CIT) in 1988. This facility, which pro- to build upon our good relations with industry vides office space for the Department, also and introduce the IPP, our vehicle for strength- houses the University's central computing staff, Modern Languages Laboratories, the John E. Savage ening and expanding these relations. Chairman mainframe, a computer store, and a computer 1985-1991 Our Relations with Industry In 1982 we dedicated Foxboro Auditorium, the world’s first workstation-based classroom. By the beginning of the 1983-84 academic year this unique undergraduate environment was populated with 55 new Apollo DN300 desktop workstations. This impressive facility was visi- ble evidence of the commitment of the Depart- ment and the University to the development and application of the new workstation tech- nology, and Foxboro Auditorium attracted a Workstation Classroom great deal of attention to our research into the creative use of workstations. This auditorium, repair facility. Its most distinctive features named by the Foxboro Corporation, is in are its two lecture theatres and two class- Gould Lab, funded by the Gould Corporation, rooms outfitted with workstations, networked which adjoined Kassar House, named by the personal computers and video projection President of Atari Corporation for his father. equipment. One of the lecture theatres is operated by the Department and has 65 color In 1981 the Department acquired an NSF Sparcstations for undergraduate instruction. equipment grant for instruction that allowed us The others are generally available to the cam- Brown University, Box 1910, Providence, RI 02912 pus. Major corporations, including Apple experience of Digital Equipment Corpora- Computer, Claris Corporation, Dynatech, tion. At our first technical symposium repre- Hutchison Telecommunications, IBM, sentatives from Digital learned about FIELD, Motorola Corporation, the Novell Corpora- the software development environment pro- tion, and Sun Microsystems as well as sev- duced by Professor Steve Reiss. When their eral individuals, have named space in the need for such a product emerged, they revis- CIT. ited us and ultimately, in 1990, licensed FIELD; as FUSE, it is now one of Digital’s The New Program Takes product offerings. Shape Content of Technical IPP PARTNERS 1992 To capitalize on our successful interac- Symposia tions with industry, Brad Clompus of the Development Office, Roy Bonner, a retired Each of our eight technical symposia so far Bellcore IBM manager in residence at Brown, and I has had the goal of treating an important con- Citicorp began in the summer of 1988 to flesh out temporary research or development topic Codex plans for our Industrial Partners Program. from the perspectives of business and indus- DEC Joan Cerjanec joined the planning effort as it try as well as academia. To insure that these GTech drew to a close and served as our first IPP perspectives are reflected in our symposia, Program Officer. In March, 1989, the IPP IBM T.J. Watson Lab most of our speakers are non-academics, as was introduced to senior executives of poten- illustrated by the table opposite. Motorola tial Partners with great success. At this event Siemens faculty members gave an introduction to the It is very exciting to see individuals from Sun Microsystems Program and its objectives as well as an over- competing firms at our symposia engaged in view of our research on artificial intelligence, lively discussions. Such interactions help all computer graphics, databases, operating sys- participants better to understand the decisions tems, multiparadigm design environments, they are making, it increases confidence in theoretical computer science, and VLSI. these decisions, and provides an extremely healthy form of pre-competitive cooperation. An important goal of our Program is to We take seriously our role in shaping the provide Partners with opportunities for pre- agenda for symposia and providing a neutral competitive cooperation. We do this through ground for discussion, and we welcome sug- a series of technical sym- gestions for future technical symposia as well “An important goal of posia on topics of current as for other types of events of value to our interest to our Partners. Partners. our Program is to pro- Symposia are typically vide Partners with day-long events at which The Current Organization most of the speakers are of the IPP opportunities for pre- Partner representatives or competitive coopera- other non-academic visi- This year the Department has a new Chair- tors; usually only one or man, Eugene Charniak, and a new Program tion.” two speakers are Brown Officer, Suzi Howe. Eugene, on the faculty faculty or students. This since 1978, is an expert in artificial intelli- arrangement encourages interaction between gence specializing in natural language under- Partners and provides a program more likely standing, and is co-author with Drew McDermott of the textbook Artificial Intelli- to appeal to them. gence. Suzi joins us from Computing and Information Services, the group providing For us at Brown, technical symposia provide centralized computing support on campus. an important window on Partner interests, Eugene has overall responsibility for the Pro- helpful to faculty and students in understand- gram and Suzi maintains day-to-day contact ing the concerns of the commercial world. with Partners, helping them communicate Partners gain visibility in the Department, with faculty and students and acquire infor- which is valuable for recruiting purposes, and mation on the Department. She also coordi- have access to faculty and student research. nates technical symposia and is editor of this The value of the latter is illustrated by the newsletter. conduit! 2 Interaction with Faculty and Students An important function of the IPP is facilitating Partner contact with faculty and students. Peri- odically Partners have job opportunities appropriate for our graduates. Suzi will circulate informa- tion on such opportunities through our undergraduate and graduate student communities, make introductions to students, forward resumes, and otherwise help to fill such positions. From time to time she will also contact Partners, especially at mid-year or late in the spring semester, to notify them of students who have just come on the job market. Partners occasionally need advice or pointers to scientific literature. Here Suzi can also help by put- ting Partners in touch with appropriate faculty members or graduate students. In the past we have been able to find students and faculty members to offer lectures or short courses for Partners. In such situations, Partners will settle privately SPEAKER BROWN DATE TOPIC for the lectures and courses. ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZERS 7/13/89 Prototyping Environments Object-Design, Inc. Prof. Reiss The Department has approximately 50 Mas- Siemens Prof. Zdonik Brown IRIS ter's and 50 PhD students and seven technical Brown CS (3 times) staff who manage our complement of about 2/21/90 Scientific Visualization Stardent, Sun, HP Prof. van Dam 170 workstations. We award between 50 and Bellcore, Brown CS Prof. Hughes Brown Applied Math 60 Bachelors degrees each year. We are well 5/3/90 Experiences with the Object TI (3 times) Messrs. balanced in our research interests and represent Paradigm Siemens (twice) Lejter, Kirman just about every area of computer science. Bellcore (twice) Shewchuk There are many ways in which a community of Codex, Brown CS (Grad Students) this size and diversity can be useful to our 7/12/90 Robotic Systems Design Denning Robotics Prof. Dean Transitions Research Partners. Eugene and Suzi are happy to dis- Design Lab cuss all such ways with Partners. Brown Linguistics, Engineering & CS Ours is a young and exciting Program 10/17/90 OSF and UI Operating Systems Day One - Prof. Doeppner Brown Tutorial designed to meet the interests of our Partners. Day Two - OSF, Sun For this to continue we need your feedback. Bellcore, DEC, IBM Unix International We would also like to expand the Program GTech somewhat while keeping the number of Part- 3/14/91 Parallel & Distributed Systems DEC, Citibank, IBM Prof. Savage ners to at most approximately 12. Your sug- HP, Motorola, Transarc gestions for other Partners, especially those 7/18/91 Programming Techniques for IBM, Siemens Profs. Kanellakis, with whom you would like to interact, are most Constraint Problems & Bellcore (twice) Van Hentenryck Combinatorial Optimization Motorola, Brown CS welcome. (twice) 11/7/91 Privacy & Security IBM (twice), Citibank Prof. Doeppner DEC (twice), Sun Brown Philosophy contributions to computer graphics education, 1991 ACM SIGGRAPH Award and related fields. He is a stimulator and a leader, as shown by his key role in founding SIG- to Andy van Dam GRAPH. Reprinted by kind permission of Professor Van Dam entered the computing field in 1960 Bertram Herzog of the University of Michigan.