Tamassia, Roberto

Roberto Tamassia

James A. and Julie N. Brown Professor of Computer Science, Chair of Computer Science

Overview

Roberto Tamassia is the Plastech Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. He
is also the Director of Brown's Center for Geometric Computing. His
research interests include information security, cryptography,
analysis, design, and implementation of algorithms, graph drawing and
computational geometry. He has published six textbooks and more than
250 research articles and books in the above areas and has given more
than 70 invited lectures worldwide. He is an IEEE Fellow and the
recipient of a Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Computer
Society for pioneering the field of graph drawing. He is listed among
the 360 most cited computer science authors by Thomson Scientific,
Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). He serves regularly on
program committees of international conferences. His research has
been funded by ARO, DARPA, NATO, NSF, and several industrial sponsors.
He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering
from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brown Affiliations

Computer Science

On the Web

Website

Research

Research Overview

Research interests include computer security, applied cryptography, design and analysis of algorithms, graph drawing, computational geometry, and computer science education.

Research Statement

Roberto Tamassia's research currently focuses on information security, and in particular, authentication methods and protocols. He has developed an extensive suite of efficient cryptographic techniques for the authentication of data in a distributed environment. In addition to studying authentication from a cryptographic perspective, Roberto has implemented prototypes of distributed authentication systems for web services and email. Roberto's research on information security also includes work on access control, key distribution, privacy-preserving biometrics, forensic analysis, and trust negotiation.

Roberto has made numerous contributions to the general area of analysis and design of algorithms, and especially to the fields of computational geometry, graph algorithms and graph drawing. Roberto has pioneered the field of graph drawing, which studies methods for the visualization of trees, graphs, and networks in two and three dimensions. In particular, his landmark papers on planar graph drawing algorithms are heavily cited and have given momentum to the field, which has its own annual conference since 1993. Roberto has also developed efficient techniques for the dynamization of fundamental graph and geometric data structures.

Roberto has also done research on computer science education. He has developed new approaches to the teaching data structures and algorithms, which have contributed to the popularity of his series of textbooks, and he has developed tools for algorithm visualization and for the management of homework and programming assignments.

Funded Research

NSF grants for which Roberto is a PI or co-PI (excludes grants for which Brown is a subcontractor).
A complete list of Roberto's grants is included in his CV

Scholarly Work

View My Full Publication List Here

Background

Education and Training

Year	Degree	Institution
1988	PhD	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1984	MS	University of Rome

Honors and Awards

AAAS Fellow
ACM Fellow
IEEE Fellow
Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science, Thomson Scientific, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

Researchers@Brown