Abstract:
The world is entering the Information Age which is changing the education needed to prepare for good jobs and successful future careers. We are now concerned with extracting information from the enormous data sets that are available. Information, such as medical records, previously stored on paper will be digitized raising issues about how to preserve privacy. New ideas, such as zero knowledge proofs, are being developed. This talk will discuss the Information Age and give examples of the mathematics needed to undergird the education necessary for the jobs of the future.
Biography:
Prof. John E. Hopcroft is the IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computer Science at Cornell University. From January 1994 until June 2001, he was the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering. After receiving both his M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in electrical engineering from Stanford University, he spent three years on the faculty of Princeton University. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1967, was named professor in 1972 and the Joseph C. Ford Professor of Computer Science in 1985. He served as chairman of the Department of Computer Science from 1987 to 1992 and was the associate dean for college affairs in 1993. An undergraduate alumnus of Seattle University, Hopcroft was honored with a Doctor of Humanities Degree, Honoris Causa, in 1990.
He was honored with the A. M. Turing Award in 1986. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1992, he was appointed by President Bush to the National Science Board (NSB), which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), and served through May 1998. From 1995-98, Hopcroft served on the National Research Council's Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications.
