Computer Science Distinguished Lecture by Guy Blelloch (Carnegie Mellon University)

Dr. Guy E. Blelloch (U.A. and Hellen Whitaker Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University) will be presenting in our distinguished lecture series on Nov. 20th.  The talks are free and open to everyone.  No registration is required.

Location:  Fred Kaiser Building (2332 Main Mall), Room 2020/2030

Title:  Parallel Algorithms: A Retrospective and Current Directions

Abstract:  

Almost no computational devices with a single core are still being produced, and the vast majority of computational cycles that are used today are based on algorithms that make use of dozens to thousands of cores.  Yet when I ask my CS colleagues to list a few algorithms, parallel (multi-core) algorithms are rarely in the mix.  The community often views parallel algorithms as complicated, esoteric, and a topic for specialists.

The state of the art in parallel algorithms, however, has improved dramatically over the past decades, both in theory and practice. Today efficient parallel algorithms can be as simple as their sequential counterparts, and much faster on modern machines.  On the other hand, developing efficient parallel algorithms for some specific problems remains notoriously difficult.

In this talk I will outline the current state of parallel algorithms, describe some techniques that have been developed over recent years, some problems that remain hard, and describe current and potential future directions in parallel algorithms.