Dr. Jennifer L. Welch presented a tutorial on "Link Reversal Algorithms" as part of the 28th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC) held Oct. 12-15 in Austin, Texas. Welch is the Chevron Professor II and Regents Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Her tutorial presented a representative sampling of work on link-reversal-based distributed algorithms for the problems of routing, leader election, mutual exclusion, scheduling, and resource allocation.
"First, correctness and complexity results for abstract graph-theoretic versions of the problems was presented. Then extensions to handle more realistic model details were discussed," said Welch of her presentation.
DISC is an international forum on all aspects of distributed systems and networks: theory, design, analysis, implementation and application. Topics of interest at the symposium included cloud computing; mobile agents and autonomous robots; multiprocessor and multicore architectures and algorithms; game-theoretic approaches to distributed computing; and wireless, mobile, sensor and ad-hoc networks. The aim of DISC is to articulate the exciting and vigorous growth in this field.
Welch is a member of the Parasol Laboratory at Texas A&M. Her research interests are in algorithms and lower bounds for distributed computing; specifically she has recently focused on mobile ad hoc networks and distributed storage systems. She has published over 110 research papers and co-authored two books, Distributed Computing: Fundamentals, Simulations and Advanced Topics, Second Edition and Link Reversal Algorithms.
Among her many honors and awards are the ACM Distinguished Scientist Award, the IEEE Education Society Hewlett-Packard Harriet B. Rigas Award for outstanding woman engineering educator, and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. After receiving her doctoral degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Welch worked at GTE Laboratories, Inc. and the University of North Carolina before joining Texas A&M.