Computer hardware verification expert to speak

An internationally renowned expert on techniques that make computer hardware perform correctly will give a talk Wednesday, April 21 on campus.

Edmund M. Clarke, Jr., a computer scientist from Carnegie Mellon University, will speak on the problem of verifying circuit and protocol designs. His talk will run from 4-5 p.m. in room AB20 of Weeks Hall, 1215 Dayton St.

He will give the annual J. Barkley Rosser Memorial Lecture, which is sponsored by the computer sciences department and made possible through a gift by Annetta Rosser. The free event is open to the public.

Clarke is the FORE Systems Professor in the School of Computer Science at CMU. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and a co-recipient of the 1998 ACM Kanellakis Award, which is given for an outstanding achievement that combines theory and practice.

Clarke will discuss “temporal logic model checking,” a method of formally checking system designs that is widely used in the computer-hardware industry, and is beginning to show significant promise also in software verification and other areas.

The lecture series is held in memory of the late J. Barkley Rosser, a UW–Madison professor of computer sciences and mathematics and director of the Mathematics Research Center from 1963 to 1978. For more information, contact Laura Cuccia in the computer sciences department at (608) 262-0017.