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Grand Challenges and Time Wasters in
Computer Science Research Prof. Matthew Ward WPI Department of Computer
Science Friday, September 5,
2008 On a
regular basis, different fields and subdisciplines publish lists of top
research challenges, often with the intent to move their field into
directions of high potential impact.
Having studied a number of such lists, as well as serving on several
panels charged with developing them in a couple different areas of computer
science, I'd like to present my views of which of these topics are things
that are worthy of significant research effort versus those I feel are wastes
of time, either because they are likely unsolvable or the solution is likely
to be obsolete as computer technology follows its present trajectory. This talk is meant to encourage researchers
to think more broadly about the topics they pursue; in a CS department
retreat a few years ago, someone opined that we should all work on the grand
challenge/high impact problems within our subdisciplines, and if we are not,
we should question why we work on what we do.
While I don't agree with this entirely, it can be a useful exercise as
we move towards increasing the research reputation of our department. There will be ample opportunities for
audience members to voice their opinions on both the validity of my lists as
well as the inclusion of other problems on either the worthy topic or
time-waster list. ______ Prof. Matthew Ward (WPI Class of 1977) has been a member of
the Computer Science Department since 1986.
His research is primarily in the area of data and information
visualization, and he teaches courses in graphics, animation, visualization,
human-computer interaction, and computer vision. Host: Prof. Micha Hofri Refreshments will be served.
Last modified: September 2, 2008 |
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