Edward D. Lazowska

Edward D. Lazowska
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Scientific career
Fields	Computer scientist
Institutions	University of Washington
Thesis	Characterizing Service Time and Response Time Distributions in Queueing Network Models of Computer Systems[1] (1977)
Doctoral advisor	Kenneth C. Sevcik
Doctoral students	Hank Levy Yi-Bing Lin Tom Anderson Ed Felten Christophe Bisciglia
Website	lazowska.cs.washington.edu

Edward D. "Ed" Lazowska is an American computer scientist. He holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.

Scholarship

Lazowska’s research and teaching concern the design, implementation, and analysis of high-performance computing and communication systems, and, more recently, the techniques and technologies of data-intensive science.

He co-authored the definitive textbook on computer system performance analysis using queuing network models,^[2] contributed to several early object-oriented distributed systems, and co-developed widely used approaches to kernel and system design in areas such as thread management, high-performance local and remote communication, load sharing, cluster computing, and the effective use of the underlying architecture by the operating system.

From 2008 to 2017 he served as the Founding Director of the University of Washington eScience Institute, one of three partners (along with Berkeley and New York University) in the Data Science Environments effort^[3] sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Leadership

Lazowska chaired the Computing Research Association from 1997 to 2001, the NSF CISE Advisory Committee from 1998 to 1999, the DARPA Information Science and Technology Study Group from 2004 to 2006, the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (co-chair with Marc Benioff) from 2003 to 2005, and the Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to review the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program in 2010 (co-chair with David E. Shaw).^[4]

From 2007 to 2013 he served as Founding Chair of the Computing Community Consortium, a national effort to engage the computing research community in fundamental research motivated by tackling societal challenges.

He served as Chair of University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering from 1993 to 2001, a period during which that program consolidated its reputation as one of the top computer science programs in the nation and the world.

A long-time advocate for increasing participation in the field, Lazowska serves on the Executive Advisory Council of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, on the National Research Council's Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and on NRC's study committee on the Impacts of Sexual Harassment in Academia ^[5].

In 2018 he was elected to the Council of the National Academy of Engineering.

Students

Lazowska has mentored a number of students who have become leaders of the field, including Hank Levy (University of Washington), Yi-Bing Lin (National Chiao Tung University), Tom Anderson (University of Washington), Ed Felten (Princeton University), and Christophe Bisciglia (successively Google, Cloudera, and WibiData).

Recognition

Lazowska is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a Member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 2007 University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award, and the 2012 Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology.

Personal history

Lazowska was born on August 3, 1950 in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, D.C.) in 1968. He obtained his A.B. at Brown University in 1972, advised by Andries van Dam and David J. Lewis, and his M.Sc. in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1977 at the University of Toronto, advised by Kenneth C. Sevcik. He is married to Lyndsay Downs; their sons Adam and Jeremy Lazowska live in Seattle. (Why would you live anywhere else?)

References