WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Dec. 5, 2008 –Jeannie Albrecht, assistant professor of computer science at Williams College, and other faculty from large research universities including University of Massachusetts, Duke, Princeton, and Stanford, are working on prototypes to expand the security, manageability, and versatility of networking systems.
Albrecht is heading one of 29 academic/industrial research teams, funded with awards totaling $12 million, to build, integrate, and begin to operate the first prototypes.
The work is being funded by BBN Technologies and the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI), an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support experimental research in network science and engineering.
Separately, these teams will build and operate the first prototypes of the GENI suite of network research infrastructure. GENI officials believe a "spiral development" approach – funding multiple research models simultaneously rather than a single, large experiment – will provide a greater volume of feedback to guide network designs and ultimately help create a more useful system.
The first phase of development, Spiral 1, focuses on ways to discover, schedule, and control resources for large-scale research experiments.
For her part, Albrecht plans to design an experiment control and management framework called Gush.
"We expect this product," Albrecht explained, "to support experiment control through three user interfaces, including graphical, command line, and programmatic.
"Our main goal in developing Gush is to provide GENI researchers and users of varying levels of expertise with a user-friendly and robust infrastructure for managing experiments."
Gush is an extension of Plush, a framework for large-scale network management systems, which Albrecht developed in earlier research. She received her B.S. from Gettysburg College and her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California at San Diego.
Albrecht is a 1997 graduate of Patapsco High School. She is the daughter of Susan and Albie Cole of Dundalk, Md.
BBN Technologies is best known for its work developing the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) and the Internet.
Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college's 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their teaching and research, and the achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in their research. Students' educational experience is enriched by the residential campus environment in Williamstown, Mass., which provides a host of opportunities for interaction with one another and with faculty beyond the classroom. Admission decisions are made regardless of a student's financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted.
To visit the college on the Internet:www.williams.edu