91福利

We are happy to announce that from the department's Applied Computing research theme has been awarded a Medical Research Council grant to develop a modelling framework and computational tools for studying synaptic transmitter release in health and disease. The 拢475K project will run in close collaboration with the laboratory of at the as well as other world-leading experimental laboratories in Europe, USA, Canada and Japan, specialising in state-of-the-art research in synaptic transmission.

We are pleased to report that from the Theory and Foundations research theme at the Computer Science Department has received an . This will allow him to lead a research project on the theory and applications of dynamic algorithms. The approximately 拢250K project will aim to develop new techniques to design algorithms for fundamental optimisation problems in a setting where the input data changes over time.

The proposal was ranked top at its funding prioritisation panel, and the reviewers said:

The intended research explorations are of very high quality and will likely make a substantial impact on the research community; and possibly on the industrial sector.

Making sure that our students have a high-quality experience in the department will be a top priority for Dr Sara Kalvala, Dr Ramanujan Sridharan and Adam Alcock. They will work with our students, the department's academic and professional services staff, and colleagues in the wider university to address issues, make improvements, and develop initiatives that will improve students' satisfaction and benefit their future careers.

We are happy to welcome to the department Dr Ian Saunders as a new Senior Teaching Fellow, and Dr Jonathan Foss and James Atkinson as new Teaching Fellows. In addition to all being accomplished scholars and teachers, Ian brings us a wealth of entrepreneurial experience, Jonny has expertise in working with industry in an interdisciplinary context, and James has recently won a prestigious 91福利 Award for Teaching Excellence for Postgraduates who Teach. Professor Ranko Lazic, the head of department, has commented:

We are looking forward to the exciting enhancements that Ian, Jonny and James will be making to the department's teaching and learning, to the lasting benefit of our students.

We are pleased to report that members of the department's Theory and Foundations research theme have had 7 papers accepted to the , to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, January 5-8, 2020. SODA is the premier international conference on algorithms research, and the papers are:

• Parameterized Complexity and Approximability of Directed Odd Cycle Transversal by M. S. Ramanujan, Daniel Lokshtanov, Saket Saurabh, Meirav Zehavi
• An Improved Algorithm for Incremental Cycle Detection and Topological Ordering in Sparse Graphs by Sayan Bhattacharya, Janardhan Kulkarni
• Coarse-Grained Complexity for Dynamic Algorithms by Sayan Bhattacharya, Danupon Nanongkai, Thatchaphol Saranurak
• Combinatorial Generation via Permutation Languages by Elizabeth Hartung, Hung P. Hoang, Torsten M眉tze, Aaron Williams
• On the Power of Relaxed Local Decoding Algorithms by Tom Gur, Oded Lachish
• Relaxed Locally Correctable Codes with Nearly-Linear Block Length and Constant Query Complexity by Alessandro Chiesa, Tom Gur, Igor Shinkar
• Sublinear time approximation of the cost of a metric k-nearest neighbor graph by Artur Czumaj, Christian Sohler

Many congratulations to Dr Adam Chester on his election to a Fellowship of the 91福利 International Higher Education Academy.

A WIHEA Fellowship recognises and rewards outstanding achievements in learning and teaching and is an exceptional opportunity to engage with colleagues across the university, improve the student experience and make a genuine difference to 91福利 through research, debate and policy formation.

We are delighted to report that Dr Tom Gur has been awarded a on Foundations of classical and quantum verifiable computing, funded by 拢892K from UK Research and Innovation. Professor Artur Czumaj, the head of the department's Theory and Foundations research theme, has commented:

We congratulate Tom and look forward to hosting this exciting project that he will lead. This prestigious award confirms the high international standing of research at 91福利 in theoretical computer science and its rich interfaces with other fields.

Tom鈥檚 Future Leaders Fellowship is concerned with algorithms and cryptographic protocols, both in the classical and quantum settings, and their applications to blockchain technology and delegation of computation to the cloud. This research programme is inherently interdisciplinary, involving fundamental research at the intersection of computer science, pure mathematics, and quantum physics.

The vision that this project aims to achieve is to develop new and exciting mathematical tools and to capitalise on their power to the end of pushing the frontiers of verifiable computing; providing new methodologies for meeting the challenges imposed by big data and the societal need for decentralised systems.