Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) Harvard University

Everywhere we turn these days, we find that networks are becoming increasingly appropriate descriptions of relevant interactions.  In the high tech world, we see the Internet, the World Wide Web, mobile phone networks, and a variety of online social networks.  In economics, we are increasingly experiencing both the positive and negative effects of a global networked economy.  In epidemiology, we find disease spreading over our ever growing social networks, complicated by mutation of the disease agents.  In problems of world health, distribution of limited resources, such as water resources, quickly becomes a problem of finding the optimal network for resource allocation.  In biomedical research, we are beginning to understand the structure of gene regulatory networks, with the prospect of using this understanding to manage the many diseases caused by gene mis-regulation.  In this talk, I look quite generally at some of the models we are using to describe these networks, processes we are studying on the networks, algorithms we have devised for the networks, and finally, methods we are developing to indirectly infer network structure from measured data.  In particular, I will discuss models and techniques which cut across many disciplinary boundaries.

Jennifer Tour Chayes is Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Mass., which opened in July 2008. Before this, she was Research Area Manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and Cryptography at Microsoft Research Redmond. Chayes joined Microsoft Research in 1997, when she co-founded the Theory Group. Her research areas include phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game theory. She is the co-author of almost 100 scientific papers and the co-inventor of more than 20 patents. Chayes has many ties to the academic community. She is Affiliate Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Washington, and was for many years professor of Mathematics at UCLA. She serves on numerous institute boards, advisory committees and editorial boards, including the Turing Award Selection Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Board of Trustees of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, the Advisory Boards of the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science, the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Institute, the U.S. National Committee for Mathematics and the Committee on Assuring the Integrity of Research Data of the National Academies, the Advisory Committee on Women in Computing of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Leadership Advisory Council of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and the Selection Committee for the Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership. Chayes is a past chairwoman of the Mathematics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a past vice president of the American Mathematical Society. Chayes received her bachelor of art degree in biology and physics at Wesleyan University, where she graduated first in her class, and her doctorate in mathematical physics at Princeton University. She did her postdoctoral work in the mathematics and physics departments at Harvard and Cornell universities. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. She has twice been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Chayes is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the Fields Institute, and a National Associate of the National Academies. Chayes is best known for her work on phase transitions, in particular for laying the foundation for the study of phase transitions in problems in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science. This study is now giving rise to some of the fastest known algorithms for fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization. She is also one of the world's experts in the modeling and analysis of random, dynamically growing graphs, which are used to model the Internet, the World Wide Web, and a host of other technological and social networks. Among Chayes' contributions to Microsoft technologies are the development of methods to analyze the structure and behavior of various networks, the design of auction algorithms, and the design and analysis of various business models for the online world. Chayes lives with her husband, Christian Borgs, who happens to be her principal scientific collaborator. In her spare time, she enjoys overworking.