Uzi Vishkin

Uzi Vishkin is a professor of electrical and computer engineering with a permanent appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.

His research focuses on parallelism in computing, design and analysis of algorithms, and synergy of algorithms.

He started his work on parallel computing in 1979 as a doctoral student at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Vishkin's initial focus was on parallel algorithms and parallel algorithmic thinking. The 1982 Shiloach-Vishkin work-depth methodology for presenting parallel algorithms provided the presentation framework in several parallel algorithm (known as PRAM algorithms) texts, which also include a considerable number of parallel algorithms he co-authored.

This parallel algorithms theory provided the basis for his invention of the PRAM-On-Chip desktop supercomputer framework that scales beyond 1000 processors on chip. He later led its extensive hardware and software prototyping, including a 64-processor computer that has already been programmed by more than 100 middle school and high school students. He was named a Maryland Innovator of the Year for his PRAM-On-Chip venture, whose main patent has been widely cited in patents of the major vendors.

A follow-up proposal, entitled Center for Reinvention of Computing for Parallelism, ranked first among 49 proposals in a University System of Maryland (USM)-wide competition for Maryland Research Centers of Excellence.

In 1996, he was elected an ACM Fellow for, among other things, having "played a leading role in forming and shaping what thinking in parallel has come to mean in the fundamental theory of Computer Science." He is also an ISI-Thompson Highly Cited Researcher.

Before coming to the University of Maryland, Vishkin was affiliated with Tel Aviv University between and 1984 and 1997, and was chair of its computer science department from 1987 to 1988. Vishkin also worked for IBM T.J. Watson and New York University.

He received his doctorate in computer science from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in 1981.

Go here to view Vishkin's academic publications on Google Scholar.