Ed Lazowska

Ed Lazowska holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. His research and teaching concern the design, implementation, and analysis of high performance computing and communication systems. Lazowska is a member of the Microsoft Research Technical Advisory Board, and serves as a board member or technical advisor to a number of high-tech companies and venture firms. He co-chaired the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee from 2003-05, and recently became the inaugural chair of the Computing Community Consortium, an effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation to engage the computing research community in envisioning more audacious research challenges.

Recent posts and comments

• Of Patent Rats and Blaming Teachers

  [Editor's Note: We asked selected Xconomists a series of questions designed to zero in on the big issues of the year, including "What issues would you be willing to throw a punch over?"]

  There... Read more »

• Technology That Finally Helps Learning

  [Editor's note: As a New Year's exercise, we asked a select group of Xconomists to answer this question: "What's the craziest idea out there that just might succeed?"]

  That technology can actually play a significant... Read more »

• Steve Jobs: A Technology Guy For the Rest of Us

  It’s impossible to overstate Jobs’s contributions.

  First, monumental contributions to design. Design is at least as much about what to omit as it is about what to include, and Jobs was... Read more »

• Red Hot: The Computer Science Job Market

  It’s no secret that there’s extraordinary competition right now for computer scientists. Both nationally and regionally, new graduates from strong programs at all degree levels are receiving extraordinary offers.

  This year’s... Read more »

• Four Ways Michigan Can Reinvigorate Its Economy (And One Way to Enjoy the Journey)

  1. Invest substantially in targeted initiatives at the University of Michigan, and in programs that encourage the state’s best students to attend. Michigan is one of the nation’s truly great universities,... Read more »

• Exponentials R Us: Seven Computer Science Game-Changers from the 2000′s, and Seven More to Come

  Forty years ago, in 1969, Neil Armstrong left footprints on the surface of the moon. It was an extraordinary accomplishment.

  Also in 1969, with much less fanfare and at much less... Read more »

• The Stimulus, UW, and Washington State

  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, or “the stimulus”) totaled approximately $787 billion. Of this, approximately $21.5 billion (2.7 percent) was for the support of R&D—$18 billion for... Read more »

• Washington’s State Budget and Washington State’s Competitiveness

  I’d like to throw out a few factoids for your consideration:

  1. Washington is a high-tech state. For example, we rank 4th among the 50 states in the number of individuals in... Read more »

• A Clear Choice on Science, Technology, and Innovation

  Washington’s economy is one of the most technology-intensive in the nation. Software. Precision agriculture. Aerospace. Biomedicine. E-tailing. New media. Alternative energy. Public and private research institutions. Even narrowly defined, the technology... Read more »

• Washington: All Geared Up To Fight the Last War

  By now you’ve seen the 2008 Milken Institute “State Technology and Science Index.” Washington ranks fifth, behind Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, and California. Not too shabby? Let’s take a look under the covers.... Read more »