Computer science symposium offers talks by slate of industry leaders

Leading computer scientists will headline a symposium titled "The Computer, The Academy and the World" at Brown University May 27-28, 1999. The event marks the 60th birthday of Andries van Dam, Brown professor and computer science pioneer.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Leaders in the field of computer science will talk about the uses of technology during a symposium May 27-28, 1999, in honor of computer science pioneer Andries van Dam, the Thomas J. Watson Jr. University Professor of Technology and Education and professor of computer science.

Alan Kay of The Walt Disney Company, David Salesin of Microsoft, and Ronen Barzel, a member of the team who created the movie Toy Story, will be among the speakers at "The Computer, The Academy and The World." Topics of discussion will include blending art and engineering to make movies; the office of the future; technologies for learning; and the idea that the computer revolution has not yet occurred.

Editors: The symposium is open only to registered participants, but members of the press are invited to attend. Contact the News Bureau for information.

In 1966, van Dam was awarded the nation's second Ph.D. in computer science. Since then, he has broken new ground in the use of computers in education; educated a generation of experts in computer graphics; helped with countless startup companies; and served on the advisory boards of many small and large companies, including Microsoft Research. He has also mentored a steady stream of undergraduates, many of them current or former chairs of the top-ranked departments in the country. In 1996, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. The event marks van Dam's recent 60th birthday.

"Andy van Dam's Legacy: A Mid-Career Review" will be the first discussion of the symposium, led by Ed Lazowska, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, May 27, at 9:45 a.m.

Symposium Schedule

The symposium is open to the public, but a $75 registration fee is required. For details, call (401) 863-7600 or visit the Web site.

All sessions in C.V. Starr Auditorium of MacMillan Hall, 167 Thayer St.

Thursday, May 27

11 a.m. Raj Reddy: "Technologies for Learning"
Reddy is dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1:30 p.m. Henry Fuchs: "The Office of the Future"
Fuchs is Federico Gil Professor of Computer Science and adjunct professor of radiation oncology at the University of North Carolina. His work in high-performance computer architectures has led the development of hardware for computer graphics for almost 20 years.

2:30 p.m. Ronen Barzel: "Blending Art and Engineering to Make Movies"
Barzel joined Pixar in 1993 to work on Toy Story, and has since worked on modeling, lighting and animation tools. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Graphics Tools, and received a bachelor's degree in math/physics from Brown.

4:30 p.m. Alan Kay: "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet"
Kay is Disney Fellow and vice president of research and development at The Walt Disney Company. He is best known for the idea of personal computing, the conception of the intimate laptop computer, and the inventions of the now ubiquitous overlapping-window interface and modern object-oriented programming.

Friday, May 28

10 a.m. Ingrid Carlbom: "Telepresence - The Next Communications Paradigm"
Carlbom is head of the Visual Communications Research Department in the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory at Bell Labs. She received a Ph.D. in computer science from Brown.

11:30 a.m. Steve DeRose: "The World-wide Web and the Past and Future of Hypertext"
DeRose was co-founder of Electronic Book Technologies, which was recently acquired by Inso Corporation. He is now chief scientist at Inso Electronic Publishing Systems and visiting chief scientist at the Scholarly Technology Group at Brown. He received a Ph.D. in computational linguistics from Brown in 1989.

2:30 p.m. David Salesin: "Beyond Realism: Aesthetics in Image Synthesis"
Salesin is a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. His research interests include non-photorealistic rendering, image-based rendering, realistic facial animation and color reproduction. He received a bachelor's degree from Brown.