[Colloquium] REMINDER: Monday's talk by Andrew Yao

[Margery Ishmael]

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE - DISTINGUISHED COLLOQUIUM

Date: Monday, April 30, 2007
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Place: Ryerson Annex 276 (1100 E. 58th St.)

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Speaker: ANDREW YAO, Tsinghua University, Beijing

Web page: http://www.castu.tsinghua.edu.cn/yao/

Title: A Modern Theory of Trust-but-Verify

The development of the internet has not only changed the world
technologically, but has also given rise to novel and exciting
scientific inquiries. For example, the quest of finding trust and
security in a networked environment necessitates the re-examination of
what reliable knowledge is, and how it can be transferred from one
party to another. In this talk we will discuss a modern theory of
proofs that has been developed in recent years by theoretical computer
scientists. Some of the stunning insights obtained may be compared
with the most intriguing ones ever found in mathematic; moreover they
are starting to be used in applications such as the secure
verification of software downloads.

Professor Yao was born in Shanghai, China. He received a BS in Physics
from National Taiwan University , a PhD in Physics from Harvard
University , and a PhD in Computer Science from University of
Illinois. His research interests include analysis of algorithms,
computational complexity, cryptography and quantum computing. From
1975 onward, Professor Yao served on the faculty at MIT, Stanford, UC
Berkeley, and during 1986 – 2004, as William and Edna Macaleer
Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University.
In 2004, he left Princeton to become a Professor of Computer Science
at Tsinghua Univeristy in Beijing . He is also a Distinguished
Professor-at-Large at the Chinese University of Hong Kong .

Professor Yao was recipient of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award in
year 2000 for his contributions to the theory of computation,
including communication complexity, pseudorandom number generation,
and quantum communication. He has received numerous other honors and
awards, including the George Polya Prize, the Donald E. Knuth Prize,
and several honorary degrees. He is a member of the US National
Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and
the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

***The talk will be followed by refreshments in Ryerson 255***

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Host:  Stuart A. Kurtz

People in need of assistance should call 773-834-8977 in advance.

For information on future CS talks: http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/events