Two members of the School of Engineering's Department
of Computer Science have been elected to the National Academy
of Engineering (NAE), among the highest professional distinctions
in the field.
The election of Leonard M. Adleman
and Barry W. Boehm to the ranks of
the prestigious body brings the number of USC members to 18.
In addition to these 18, three members of USC's Board of Trustees
- board president Malcolm R. Curr ie and trustees Allen E. Puckett
and Richard J. Stegemeier - belong to the organization.
"The election of Len and Barry
is a welcome sign that the quality of the university's scientific
faculty is becoming more widely recognized," said dean
of engineering Leonard M. Silverman, himself a member of the
academy. "I congratulate th em on their well-deserved achievement
and thank them for the honor their efforts have brought to the
school."
President Steven B. Sample also hailed
the elections. "Here at USC, we have long been aware of
the extraordinary scientific work performed by Professors Adleman
and Boehm. Professor Adleman's recent
DNA research has stretche d the dimensions of the field of computer
science. Professor Boehm's work has
made software design less trial-and-error and more of an engineering
disclipline. I'm delighted to see their pioneering work recognized
by the world's m ost prestigious engineering body."
Adleman holds the Henry Salvatori
Chair in Computer Science. His NAE election citation notes his
"contributions to the theory of computation and cryptography."
His contributions in this area include
work developing the now widely-used RSA system for data encryption
- the "A" in RSA stands for Adleman.
Adleman also made international headlines
in 1994, when he published a paper in Science demonstrating
that the genetic material DNA can be used as a computational
medium. He is working to develop this insight in a newly established
laboratory. Another not able publication was a new probabilistic
test to establish if a given number is prime.
Adleman coined the term "computer
virus" to describe the first example of the bug, which
was programmed by a student in his class in 1983. He has also
put forth a highly original hypothesis explaining a peculiarity
in the immune system's respons e to a real virus - HIV. The
hypothesis has since been confirmed in repeated tests.
"It is an honor to join such
a distinguished group of researchers," said Adleman, who
has been at USC since 1980. "I want to thank the university
for providing a fertile environment for scientific research."
Photo- IRENE FERTIK
Leonard
M. Adleman
Boehm is TRW Professor of Software
Engineering in the Department of Computer Science. His election
citation notes his "contributions to computer and software
architectures and to models of cost, quality, and risk for aerospace
systems."
He is the creator of the Constructive
Cost Model, the Spiral Model of the software process and two
advanced software environments - the TRW Software Productivity
System and the Quantum Leap environment. His current research
interests include software proc ess modeling, software requirements
engineering, software architectures, software metrics and cost
models, software engineering environments and knowledge-based
software engineering.
Boehm came
to USC in 1993, after having served as chief scientist of TRW's
Defense Systems Group.
A writer and editor, Boehm
is the author of several books on software engineering, including
Software Engineering Economics (1981) and Software Risk Management
(1989). He has chaired the American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astro nautics' technical committee on computer systems and
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' technical
committee on software engineering, and has been a member of
the governing board of the IEEE Computer Section. He is a fellow
of the IEEE and the AIAA.
"I feel fantastically honored,"
said Boehm. "When I look at people
who are members of this body, I see the people I have respected
during my whole career. It is wonderful to be in the same body
with them."
Boehm singled
out his wife, Shana, for her "tremendous support. Without
her, I don't think I'd have gotten as far as a Ph.D."
Ellis Horowitz, chairman of computer
science, said he was "overwhelmed" at having two department
members elected in one year. "This is a wonderful recognition
of their outstanding achievements." he said.
Horowitz proudly noted that the computer
science department now has more than 60 research faculty "working
on subjects ranging from robotics to the Internet, from databases
to operating systems, from networks to software engineering,
from natural lan guage processing to expert systems, from virtual
reality to computer-based manufacturing, with research funding
totaling more that $10 million per year."
According to Silverman, with the
election of Adleman and Boehm and the
recent hiring of two NAE members, Masanobu Shinozuka and R.
P. "Chris" Caren, the school now ranks seventh nationally
in academy membership.
Photo- IRENE FERTIK
Barry
W. Boehm
The National Academy of Engineering was established in
1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as
a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It shares with
the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advisin
g the federal government. The NAE also sponsors engineering programs
aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research
and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers.
Academy membership honors those who
have made "important contributions to engineering theory
and practice" and those who have demonstrated "unusual
accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields
of technology," accordin g to the guidelines for election
of new members.
The NAE currently
includes 1,841 distinguished academic and industry members of
the engineering profession. This year, the academy added 78
new members, 31 of them from academia, the balance from industry.
USC was one of only five academic institutions na tionwide to
add two new members. USC, Stanford University and the University
of California at Santa Barbara were the only California educational
institutions to have faculty elected members this year.