The ACM Europe Conference will be a truly international event, bringing together computer scientists and practitioners from around the world. The two main themes of the conference are Cybersecurity and High Performance Computing.
Prof Silvio Micali
He received his undergraduate education in Rome, graduating with a degree in mathematics from Sapienza University in 1978 as one of the brightest students of Professor Corrado Böhm. He earned his PhD under Manuel Blum at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982. After a postdoctoral position in Toronto (1982-1983), he joined the faculty at MIT in July 1983, where he has been since.
Silvio Micali is a visionary whose work has contributed to the mathematical foundations of cryptography and has advanced the theory of computation. His non-conventional thinking has fundamentally changed our understanding of basic notions such as randomness, secrets, proof, knowledge, collusion, and privacy, which have been contemplated and debated for millennia. This foundational work was a key component in the development of the computer security industry, facilitated by his patents and start-up companies. His work has also had great impact on other research areas in computer science and mathematics.
Prof Micali will give a lecture on “ALGORAND: A new distributed ledger” on September, 7th.
Prof Chris Hankin
Professor Hankin is a Professor of Computing Science at Imperial College London. He is co-Director of the College’s Institute for Security Science and Technology. His research is in data analytics and cyber security. He leads multidisciplinary projects focussed on developing advanced visual analytics and providing better decision support to defend against cyber attacks. He is Director of the Research Institute on Trustworthy Industrial Control Systems. From 2007-2013, he was Editor-in-Chief of ACM Computing Surveys. He is an elected member of the ACM Europe Council and a member of its policy group (EUACM) and the ACM Publications Board.
Prof Hankin will moderate the Cybersecurity Panel on September, 7th.
Prof Judith Gal-Ezer
Judith Gal-Ezer is a professor emerita of computer science at the Open University of Israel (OUI), the department of Mathematics and Computer Science. She developed numerous courses in Mathematics and Computer Science (CS) at the Open University, was one of the designers of the CS undergraduate programa and served as Vice President of the University. She is the recipient of ACM SIGCSE 2007 “Special Contribution to computer science education” and of the IEEE 2015 Computer Society Taylor L. Booth Education Award “For outstanding research and its practical application in the field of computer science education”. Professor Gal-Ezer serves now as a member of ACM-Europe Council, EUACM Steering Committee, the Advisory Council of CSTA (The international Computer Science Teacher Association) and on Google’s Education Advisory Council. She was one of the authors of the EUACM Cybersecurity Policy White Paper.
Prof Gal-Ezer will participate in the Cybersecurity Panel on September, 7th.
Mr Jeremy Epstein
Jeremy Epstein is Deputy Division Director for Computer and Network Systems at the US National Science Foundation, where he oversees NSF’s research funding in cybersecurity, networking, systems, cyber physical systems, computer science education, infrastructure, and other fields. Prior to his current role, he was a program manager at the US Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he led programs in privacy and software security, and lead program officer for NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program. He’s vice chair of the ACM US Public Policy Council (USACM), associate editor in chief of IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, and founder/director of the ACSA Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS) program. His research interests are broadly in the field of cybersecurity and privacy, and specifically in the areas of voting and elections.
Mr Epstein will participate in the Cybersecurity Panel on September, 7th.
Prof Manel Medina
Manel Medina is full Professor and Director of MsC Cybersecurity at the Politecnic University of Catalunya (UPC). He is founder and Dir. of esCERT-UPC, Spanish UPC Computer Emergency Response Team and advisor of ISMS Forum Spain, ENISA, CyberGreen and Stop.Think.Connect. In the past, he was Head of CERT relations Unit and Deputy Head of TCD at ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) and member of ESRIF, ESRAB, NIS Platform, to advise EU Commission in cybersecurity R&D&i topics. He has been founder of several spin-off companies as well as the cybersecurity advisor of several organisations as Safelayer Secure Communications, InetSecur / tb-segurity, SeMarket and Ready People.
Prof Medina will participate in the Cybersecurity Panel on September, 7th.
Mr Gerhard Schimpf
Gerhard Schimpf is an independent consultant with experience in the banking, wholesale, airline, and utilities industries, where he helped large scale customers to implement Information Security Management Systems.. Prior to this role he was a Development and Product Manager with IBM and Senior IT-Security Manager with a German consulting firm. He is a member of the ACM SIGSAC and the German Chapter of the ACM where he initiated IT-Security live, an annual technical exchange conference for Information Security Managers and Researchers. He was a member of the ACM Europe Council until 2005. Currently he is chair of the Committee of European Chapter Leaders (CECL) a standing committee of the ACM Europe Council. He was one of the reviewers of the EUACM Cybersecurity Policy White Paper.
Mr Schimpf will participate in the Cybersecurity Panel on September, 7th.
Mr Thomas Skordas, Director DG CONNECT
Thomas Skordas received his diploma in Electrical Engineering in 1984 from University Aristotle of Thessaloniki, Greece, and the PhD in Computer Science in 1988, from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France. From 1988 to 1995, Thomas worked in Grenoble, France as a Research Fellow and as project leader in EU-funded R&D projects in the areas of Information Technology and Robotics.
In 1995, Thomas joined the European Commission as a Research Programme Officer in the Information Society Technologies Programme, part of the Directorate General Information Society & Media (DG INFSO).
Ever since, Thomas worked in various units of DG INFSO (which, in 2012 became DG CONNECT) dealing with ICT research in the context of EU’s Research Framework Programmes. From 2006 to 2009, he was Deputy Head of Unit in ICT Security and Trust. In July 2009, Thomas was appointed Head of the Photonics Unit and on 1st February 2014, Head of the Flagships Unit. Finally, on 1st March 2017 he was appointed Director of “Digital Excellence and Science Infrastructure”.
Director Mr Skordas will moderate the the HPC Panel on September, 8th.
Prof Mateo Valero
Mateo Valero, is full professor at Computer Architecture Department at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Director Barcelona Supercomputing Center. His research focuses on high-performance computer architectures.
Professor Mateo Valero obtained his Ph.D. in Telecommunications from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1980. He has been teaching at UPC since 1974; since 1983 he has been a full professor at the Computer Architecture Department. Since May 2004, he has been the director of Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Spanish national supercomputing centre. His research is in the area of computer architecture, with special emphasis on high performance computers: processor organization, memory hierarchy, systolic array processors, interconnection networks, numerical algorithms, compilers and performance evaluation. His main awards: Seymour Cray, Eckert-Mauchly, Harry Goode, ACM Distinguished Service. He is Honorary Doctorate by 9 Universities. He is a fellow of IEEE and ACM and is and Intel Distinguished Research Fellow. He is member of 5 academies.
Prof Valero is the overall Chair of the ACM Europe Conference and on September, 8th, he will participate in the HPC Panel.
Prof Katherine Yelick
Prof Katherine Yelick is the Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she oversees the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and the Computational Research Division. She is also a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include parallel programming languages, automatic performance tuning, performance analysis, parallel algorithms, and optimizing compilers.
Yelick is an ACM Fellow and recent recipient of the ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy award and the ACM-W Athena award. She is a member of the National Academies Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), and she previously served on the California Council on Science and Technology and the LLNS/LANS Science and Technology Committee overseeing research at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
Prof Yelick will deliver the HPC keynote lecture on “Breakthrough Science at the Exascale”on September, 8th.
Prof Paul Messina
Dr Paul Messina is Advisor to the Associate Laboratory Director and Laboratory on Exascale and Argonne Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. His current role is Project Director for the U.S. DOE Exascale Computing Project, a multi-laboratory project. During 2008-2015 he served as Director of Science for the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and in 2002-2004 as Distinguished Senior Computer Scientist at Argonne and as Advisor to the Director General at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). From 1987-2002, Dr Messina served as founding Director of California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Center for Advanced Computing Research, as Assistant Vice President for Scientific Computing, and as Faculty Associate for Scientific Computing, Caltech. During a leave from Caltech in 1999-2000, he led the DOE-NNSA Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. In his first association with Argonne from 1973-1987, he held a number of positions in the Applied Mathematics Division and was the founding Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division.
Prof Messina will participate in the HPC Panel on September, 8th.
Prof Satoshi Matsuoka
Satoshi Matsuoka has been a Full Professor at the Global Scientific Information and Computing Center (GSIC), a Japanese national supercomputing center hosted by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and since 2016 a Fellow at the AI Research Center (AIRC), AIST, the largest national lab in Japan. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Tokyo in 1993. He is also currently leading several major supercomputing research projects, such as the MEXT Green Supercomputing, JSPS Billion-Scale Supercomputer Resilience, as well as the JST-CREST Extreme Big Data. He is a fellow of the ACM and European ISC, and has won many awards, including the JSPS Prize from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science in 2006, awarded by his Highness Prince Akishino, the ACM Gordon Bell Prize in 2011, the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2012, and recently the 2014 IEEE-CS Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award, the highest prestige in the field of HPC.
Prof Matsuoka will participate in the HPC Panel on September, 8th.
Mrs Alison Kennedy
Alison Kennedy is the Director of the Hartree Centre, based at the UK’s Science and Facilities Council’s National Laboratory at Daresbury. The Hartree Centre is funded by the UK government with a remit to improve the global competitiveness of UK industry by facilitating the adoption of High Performance Computing, High Performance Data Analytics and Cognitive Computing techniques by companies of all sizes. Prior to joining the Hartree Centre, she was the Executive Director of EPCC, the national HPC centre based at the University of Edinburgh and has recently completed a term of office as the Managing Director and Chair of the Board of Directors of PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe). She began her working life as a real time systems programmer in industry and has now worked in HPC for more almost 25years, managing large collaborative projects in HPC and Data.
Mrs Kennedy will participate in the HPC Panel on September, 8th.
Prof Per Stenström
Per Stenström is a professor of computer engineering at Chalmers University of Technology since 1995. His research interests are on design principles for high-performance computer systems with an emphasis on high-performance memory systems. He has authored or co-authored four textbooks and more than a hundred publications in international journals and conferences. He is regularly serving program committees and acting as editor for major conferences and journals in the computer architecture field: ISCA, HPCA, ACM TACO among others. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and ACM and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, the Academia Europaea, and the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.
Prof Strenström will participate in the HPC Panel on September, 8th.
Prof Qian Depei
Qian Depei, professor at both Sun Yat-sen university and Beihang University, dean of the School of Data and Computer Science of Sun Yat-sen University. He has been working on computer architecture and computer networks for many years. His current research interests include high performance computer architecture and implementation technologies, distributed computing, network management and network performance measurement. Since 1996 he has been the member of the expert group and expert committee of the National High-tech Research & Development Program (the 863 program) in information technology. He was the chief scientist of three 863 key projects on high performance computing since 2002. Currently, he is the chief scientist of the 863 key project on high productivity computer and application service environment.
Prof Depei will participate in the HPC Panel on September, 8th.