Abstract: In this not wholly chronological talk, I will review my trajectory to becoming department chair at a major R1 university (twice). I will give some thoughts about where computer science is headed, and I'll tell you some things about how my own department is responding to those developments. As time permits, I will give an overview of my current research into Lighthouse, a novel user-centered software development environment aimed at maximizing both developer productivity and application performance for linear algebra computations. Such computations dominate the execution time of application in diverse fields of science and engineering, but users needing to work with them face a world of continuously developing new algorithms and high-performance implementations. Lighthouse enables application developers with varied backgrounds to readily discover and effectively apply the best available numerical software for their problems.

Short Bio: Liz Jessup is professor and chair in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her BA in mathematics at Williams College and her MS in applied physics and PhD in computer science at Yale University. Her research concerns the development of efficient algorithms and software for linear algebra problems. Her recent work focuses on ways to ease the production and use of high-performance linear algebra software. Liz has been actively involved in computer science education, beginning with her role as co-creator of an award-winning, NSF-funded undergraduate curriculum in high-performance scientific computing. She has also worked to promote the participation of women in computing and has carried out research into factors influencing women's choices to study computing.