Luca Trevisan is a professor of computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. As of winter 2010, he is on leave and an acting professor of computer science at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

.

His research area is theoretical computer science

Theoretical computer science

Theoretical computer science is a division or subset of general computer science and mathematics which focuses on more abstract or mathematical aspects of computing....

, focusing on randomness

Randomness

Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....

, cryptography

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...

, probabilistically checkable proof

PCP (complexity)

In computational complexity theory, a probabilistically checkable proof is a type of proof that can be checked by a randomized algorithm using a bounded amount of randomness and reading a bounded number of bits of the proof. The algorithm is then required to accept correct proofs and reject...

s, approximation

Approximation

An approximation is a representation of something that is not exact, but still close enough to be useful. Although approximation is most often applied to numbers, it is also frequently applied to such things as mathematical functions, shapes, and physical laws.Approximations may be used because...

, property testing

Property testing

In computer science, a property testing algorithm for a decision problem is an algorithm whose query complexity to its input is much smaller than the instance size of the problem...

, and sublinear algorithms.

He received his Ph.D. from La Sapienza, Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, under the supervision of Pierluigi Crescenzi

Pierluigi Crescenzi

Pierluigi Crescenzi is a full professor of computer science at the University of Florence . His research areas include theoretical computer science and computer science education....

. After postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 and DIMACS

DIMACS

The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science is a collaboration between Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the research firms AT&T, Bell Labs, Telcordia, and NEC. It was founded in 1989 with money from the National Science Foundation...

, he held an assistant professor position at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 before moving to Berkeley.

He won the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award at the 1997 Symposium on Theory of Computing

Symposium on Theory of Computing

STOC, the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science. STOC has been organized annually since 1969, typically in May or June; the conference is sponsored by the Association for Computer Machinery special interest group SIGACT.As...

, the Oberwolfach Prize in 2000, and a Sloan Fellowship

Sloan Fellowship

The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This is distinct from the Sloan Fellows in business....

 also in 2000. He was an invited speaker at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians

International Congress of Mathematicians

The International Congress of Mathematicians is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union ....

in Madrid.

External links

• List of Publications
• in theory, Trevisan's blog