IMTech Colloquium by Anup Rao (University of Washington) on March 26, 2025 at 12:15pm (Sala d'Actes de la FME)

Professor Anup Rao (University of Washington) will speak at the IMTECH Colloquium on Wednesday March 26 at 12:15h at Sala d'actes de la Facultat de Matemàtiques i Estadística (FME).

Professor Anup Rao is Professor  in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (Seattle).  He received his BS from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study. His research focuses on theoretical computer science, particularly on aspects related to computational complexity theory.

Title: Computation and Conversation

Abstract: Every computational process seems to involve two or more entities that are engaged in a conversation with each other. Communication complexity is the study of the complexity of such conversations. In this talk, I will give a broad overview of this connection between computation and conversations, including some nice consequences for computational models like Turing machines and data structures. I will describe some of the big open questions in the area, which are clean mathematical questions in their own right. No background will be assumed.