[CSEE-colloq] talk: Christopher Rose (Rutgers): Write or Radiate, 1pm Fri 12/9, ITE325b UMBC

[Tim Finin]

         Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Colloquium

                            WRITE OR RADIATE

                       Professor Christopher Rose
                           Rutgers University

                1:00pm Friday December 9, 2011, ITE 325b

Communication theory researchers do the relatively routine but deeply
important work that maintains and expands our increasingly connected
society.  It is therefore easy to forget that communications research,
by its very nature, is more than about telephones and the Internet,
but is about interactions of any and every kind.  That is,
communication theory is an inherently profound subject and as
communications researchers, we should be sensitive to the deeper
questions our discipline often raises. In illustration, we describe
how some routine wireless research had something surprising to say
about how we might efficiently communicate across a wide range of
distances and in so doing knocked on the door of one of the "big
questions" -- are we alone in the universe?


Christopher Rose (http://bit.ly/vLZo7J) was a semi-lifer at MIT from
1975 to 1985.  He was paroled by his new wife and new baby in 1985
when he graduated with a Ph.D. in EECS. Almost immediately afterward
he began what is now a 26-year-and-counting postdoc in communication
theory starting at Bell Laboratories Research where he rubbed
shoulders with a wide range of uniformly delightful technical angels
and curmudgeons. He's currently an ECE professor at Rutgers, WINLAB
and an IEEE Fellow cited for "contributions to wireless systems
theory."

Chris has always been confused about his technical identity and has
thus roamed over research terrain that has included introducing
surprisingly good random switch architectures as an antidote to the
"topology of the week" rage back in the late '80s, better-than-fiber
superconducting coax with levitated center conductors during the heady
days of High-Tc superconductors, and a variety of wireless problems,
culminating in his proudest moment -- an interview on NPR where a
caller asked him about crop circles and ET communication.  That
interview (and the Nature paper which spawned it) has done wonders for
his reputation as an expert witness.

He is currently thinking hard about (but not making loads of progress
on) fundamental problems in bio-molecular communication. He is also
thinking about communications as a lens on everything -- with some
already surprising initial results.