Selim Akl
{{Short description|Canadian professor}}
Selim G. Akl (Ph.D., McGill University, born 1978) is a professor at Queen's University in the Queen's School of Computing, where he leads the Parallel and Unconventional Computation Group.{{Cite web|url=http://research.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel//index.html|title=Parallel Home Page|website=research.cs.queensu.ca|access-date=2018-11-06}} His research interests are primarily in the area of algorithm design and analysis, in particular for problems in parallel computing and unconventional computing.
Activities
Akl is currently Director of the School of Computing at Queen's University. He is editor in chief of Parallel Processing Letters published by World Scientific Publishing in 1991{{Cite journal|last=Akl|first=Selim G.|title=Editorial Note|journal=Parallel Processing Letters|language=en|volume=26|issue=1|pages=1601001|doi=10.1142/s0129626416010015|issn=0129-6264|year=2016}} and an editor of several major computing journals including:
- International Journal of Unconventional Computing (Old City Publishing; 2011){{Cite web|url=http://www.oldcitypublishing.com/IJUC/IJUCeditorialboard.html|title=IJUC editorial board|date=2011-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728062355/http://www.oldcitypublishing.com/IJUC/IJUCeditorialboard.html|access-date=2018-11-06|archive-date=2011-07-28}}
- Computational Geometry (Elsevier; 1993){{Cite book|url=https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computational-geometry/|title=Computational Geometry}}
- International Journal of Parallel, Emergent, and Distributed Systems (Taylor and Francis; 2004){{Cite web|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gpaa20/current|title=International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems|website=www.tandfonline.com|language=en|access-date=2018-11-06}}
Akl is the founding editorial board member of International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking (Inderscience Publishers; 2003 ),{{Cite web|url=http://www.inderscience.com/info/ingeneral/forthcoming.php?jcode=IJHPCN|title=International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking (IJHPCN) - Inderscience Publishers|website=www.inderscience.com|language=en|access-date=2018-11-06}} and a past editor of Journal of Cryptology (Springer-Verlag; 1988–1991), Information Processing Letters (North-Holland; 1989–1999), and Parallel Algorithms and Applications (Taylor and Francis; 1991–2004).
= Current research =
Recently{{When|date=January 2021}} Akl created "Quantum Chess".{{Cite news|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/quantum-physics-adds-twist-to-chess-1.879780|title=Quantum physics adds twist to chess {{!}} CBC News|work=CBC|access-date=2018-11-06|language=en-US}} The purpose of Quantum Chess is not to make the game more difficult; rather, by adding the unpredictability of quantum physics to chess, humans and computers are put on a level playing field, as they both face the same difficulties posed by the weirdness of the quantum. Alice Wismath, an undergraduate summer student, wrote a program implementing one of the many versions that Akl proposed in his article On the Importance of Being Quantum in September's Parallel Processing Letters article.{{Cite journal|last=AKL|first=SELIM G.|journal=Parallel Processing Letters|language=en|volume=20|issue=3|pages=275–286|doi=10.1142/s0129626410000223|issn=0129-6264|year=2010|citeseerx=10.1.1.174.5566|title=On the Importance of Being Quantum}}
Akl has claimed that the notion of universality in computation is false.{{Cite web|url=http://research.cs.queensu.ca/home/akl/techreports/even.pdf|title=Even accelerating machines are not universal.|last=Akl|first=Selim G.|website=Queen's University}} Akl asserts that no machine can claim universality since there will always be a larger set of problems that such a machine cannot solve. Akl has described the non-universality in computation in more detail.{{Cite web|url=http://research.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel//projects.html|title=Recent Research Projects|website=research.cs.queensu.ca|access-date=2018-11-06}}
= Conferences =
Akl chaired the 2007 International Conference on Unconventional Computation that took place in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.{{Cite web|url=http://research.cs.queensu.ca/uc07//index.htm|title=Unconventional Computation 2007 - UC '07 - 6th International Conference on Unconventional Computation|website=research.cs.queensu.ca|access-date=2018-11-06}}
Publications
Akl is the author of several textbooks in the areas of parallel computing and computational geometry:
- [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=533017&dl=GUIDE, Parallel Sorting Algorithms] (Academic Press, 1985)
- [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=63471 The Design and Analysis of Parallel Algorithms] (Prentice Hall, 1989)
- [http://fano.ics.uci.edu/cites/Document/Parallel-Computation-Models-+-Methods.html Parallel Computation: Models and Methods] (Prentice Hall, 1997).
He is also the co-author of [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=162256&dl=ACM&coll=GUIDE Parallel Computational Geometry] (Prentice Hall, 1993), [https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781441966544 Adaptive Cryptographic Access Control] (Springer, 2010), Applications of Quantum Cryptography (LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018) and [https://www.crcpress.com/From-Parallel-to-Emergent-Computing/Adamatzky-Akl-Sirakoulis/p/book/9781138054011 From Parallel to Emergent Computing] (CRC Press, 2019).
His book on Parallel Computational Geometry is considered to be the definitive work on the subject.
Awards and recognition
Akl won the 2004 and 2007 Howard Staveley Award for Teaching Excellence.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cs.queensu.ca/aboutus/awards/awards.php?type=internal|title=Awards|website=www.cs.queensu.ca|access-date=2019-02-20}} He received the Queen's University Prize for Excellence in Research in 2005{{Cite web|url=https://www.queensu.ca/vpr/prizes-awards-chairs/award-winners/prizes-excellence-research|title=Prizes for Excellence in Research {{!}} Office of the Vice-Principal (Research)|website=www.queensu.ca|access-date=2019-02-20}} and the Queen's University Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision in 2012.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cs.queensu.ca/aboutus/awards/|title=Awards|website=www.cs.queensu.ca|access-date=2019-02-20}} He served as Director of the Queen's School of Computing (2007 - 2017). In 2018, Akl was the recipient of a CS-Can/Info-Can Lifetime Achievement Award in Computer Science.{{Cite web|url=https://cscan-infocan.ca/awards/selim-akl/|title=Selim G. Akl • CS-Can / Info-Can|website=CS-Can / Info-Can|language=en-CA|access-date=2019-02-20}}
External links
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/akl/ Selim Akl's Official Home Page]
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel/publications.html#Publications Selected Journal and Conference Papers]
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel/technical.html#Technical Selected Technical Reports]
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/ Queen's University School of Computing]
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel/index.html Queen's University School of Computing : Parallel and Unconventional Computation Group]
- [http://www.cs.queensu.ca/uc07/ International Conference on Unconventional Computation 2007]