Assistant Professor Emanuele Viola Receives NSF CAREER Award
This is the foundation’s most prestigious award in support of the development activities of new scholars who most effectively integrate the research and education missions of their universities. Limited to junior faculty, CAREER awards provide scholars with the support needed to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. An overview of Professor Viola’s grant is provided by the following project summary:
Project Summary:
Viola’s CAREER project is titled, “New Pseudorandom Generators: Unconditional Results and Efficient Constructions (TOC).” A pseudorandom generator is an efficient procedure that stretches a short input seed into a much longer sequence that “looks random.” The main objective of research associated with this project is to obtain new pseudorandom generators, and will be approached from different, mutually enriching routes, whose unifying theme is the quest for pseudorandom generators that do not rely on any unproven assumption.
The main points of this research include obtaining new unconditional pseudorandom generators for important computational models; analyzing and improving the efficiency of constructions of pseudorandom generators from assumptions; and developing new paradigms and applications related to pseudorandom generators.
This research is closely integrated with a plan to achieve broad impact through education on multiple levels. This plan includes the development new theory courses, such as Gems of Theoretical Computer Science, which is new to the curriculum (Spring 2009). Student engagement is integral to this project’s success. Undergraduates will be introduced to research on accessible topics, and graduate students will be encouraged to get involved in associated research, helping them to gain experience and exposure. Additionally, this line of research will foster interdisciplinary collaboration, specifically between the College of Computer Science and the Department of Mathematics, a division of the College of Arts and Sciences.
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