IIC-CS Joint Colloquium
Interdisciplinarity in the Age of Networks
Jennifer Tour Chayes, Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England
THURSDAY, April 30, 2009 4:00 p.m.
60 Oxford, Room 330
Refreshments at 3:30 p.m.
Abstract
Everywhere we turn these days, we find that networks are becoming
increasingly appropriate descriptions of relevant interactions. In the high
tech world, we see the Internet, the World Wide Web, mobile phone networks,
and a variety of online social networks. In economics, we are increasingly
experiencing both the positive and negative effects of a global networked
economy. In epidemiology, we find disease spreading over our ever growing
social networks, complicated by mutation of the disease agents. In problems
of world health, distribution of limited resources, such as water resources,
quickly becomes a problem of finding the optimal network for resource
allocation. In biomedical research, we are beginning to understand the
structure of gene regulatory networks, with the prospect of using this
understanding to manage the many diseases caused by gene mis-regulation. In
this talk, I look quite generally at some of the models we are using to
describe these networks, processes we are studying on the networks,
algorithms we have devised for the networks, and finally, methods we are
developing to indirectly infer network structure from measured data. In
particular, I will discuss models and techniques which cut across many
disciplinary boundaries.
Bio
Jennifer Tour Chayes is Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England
in Cambridge, Mass., which opened in July 2008. Before this, she was
Research Area Manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and
Cryptography at Microsoft Research Redmond. Chayes joined Microsoft Research
in 1997, when she co-founded the Theory Group. Her research areas include
phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural
and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game
theory. She is the co-author of almost 100 scientific papers and the
co-inventor of more than 20 patents. Chayes has many ties to the academic
community. She is Affiliate Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the
University of Washington, and was for many years professor of Mathematics at
UCLA. She serves on numerous institute boards, advisory committees and
editorial boards, including the Turing Award Selection Committee of the
Association for Computing Machinery, the Board of Trustees of the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, the Advisory Boards of the Center
for Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science, the Miller Institute for
Basic Research in Science and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia
Farm Research Institute, the U.S. National Committee for Mathematics and the
Committee on Assuring the Integrity of Research Data of the National
Academies, the Advisory Committee on Women in Computing of the Association
for Computing Machinery, the Leadership Advisory Council of the Anita Borg
Institute for Women and Technology, and the Selection Committee for the
Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership. Chayes is a past chairwoman of
the Mathematics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, and a past vice president of the American Mathematical Society.
Chayes received her bachelor of art degree in biology and physics at
Wesleyan University, where she graduated first in her class, and her
doctorate in mathematical physics at Princeton University. She did her
postdoctoral work in the mathematics and physics departments at Harvard and
Cornell universities. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship and the UCLA
Distinguished Teaching Award. She has twice been a member of the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton. Chayes is a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the Fields Institute, and
a National Associate of the National Academies. Chayes is best known for her
work on phase transitions, in particular for laying the foundation for the
study of phase transitions in problems in discrete mathematics and
theoretical computer science. This study is now giving rise to some of the
fastest known algorithms for fundamental problems in combinatorial
optimization. She is also one of the world's experts in the modeling and
analysis of random, dynamically growing graphs, which are used to model the
Internet, the World Wide Web, and a host of other technological and social
networks. Among Chayes' contributions to Microsoft technologies are the
development of methods to analyze the structure and behavior of various
networks, the design of auction algorithms, and the design and analysis of
various business models for the online world. Chayes lives with her husband,
Christian Borgs, who happens to be her principal scientific collaborator. In
her spare time, she enjoys overworking.
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Pavlos Protopapas
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