Williams Gets $400K for Computing Platform Research10:04AM / Friday, September 04, 2009
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year grant for $400,000 to Williams College for research on managing distributed applications on mobile computing platforms composed of cell phones, vehicles, and embedded sensors.
Jeannie Albrecht, assistant professor of computer science, will direct the project, which is funded as a part of the Faculty Early Career Development Program, one of the most prestigious awards the NSF grants to young scholars that effectively integrate research into their teaching.
The project, "Mobile Application Management," will address issues with using mobile computing environments. Application management frameworks have previously helped software developers address challenges in conventional, wired Internet settings, but no such framework exists to tackle the unique challenges of mobile networks. Seemingly simple tasks such as configuring devices, starting executions, and tracking errors become complicated in a world of on-the-go Internet connectivity.
Albrecht plans to investigate these complications. She aims to develop techniques that utilize the predictable patterns of human interaction to increase the stability of mobile applications, and integrate the techniques into a software toolkit for mobile application management. The results of her work should benefit a range of students, researchers and developers. In particular,
undergraduates at small colleges with little prior exposure to systems development will be able to experience the technological richness of large research institutions while gaining valuable hands-on experience with emerging mobile computing systems.
Albrecht has recently worked with other faculty from large research universities on prototypes to expand the security, manageability, and versatility of networking systems, as part of the Global Environment for Network Innovations, a nationwide NSF initiative funded by BBN Technologies to support research in network science and engineering.
She received her bachelor of science degree from Gettysburg (Pa.) College, her master's from Duke University, and her doctorate from the University of California at San Diego. |
