PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 20, No. 6, Sept. 21, 2000

Innovative projects will maintain U.S. leadership in computer research
Researchers on the Urbana-Champaign campus will receive a total of $17.2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. The total represents 19 percent of the $90 million the NSF granted in its new Information Technology Research initiative.

The awards, which will spur fundamental research and innovative applications of information technology, are a step toward building on U.S. leadership in this area of growing importance to the economy, the NSF said in announcing the grants Sept. 13

"We are, of course, pleased that the NSF chose to fund 14 projects on our campus," said Tony Waldrop, the vice chancellor for research. "It is, I believe, an indication of the extraordinary quality of the research being done here and a statement, in effect, of the high regard the NSF has for Illinois."

Selected from more than 1,400 proposals, the newly funded activities will promote information-technology-driven science and engineering. Included are 62 large projects that will average $1 million per year for three to five years, involving 41 institutions in 22 states. Another 148 smaller projects will each total $500,000 or less for up to three years, involving 81 institutions in 32 states.

"This initiative will help strengthen America’s leadership in a sector that has accounted for one-third of U.S. economic growth in recent years," President Bill Clinton said. "High technology is generating jobs that pay 85 percent more than the average private sector wage. I am pleased that the National Science Foundation is expanding its investment in long-term information technology research. I urge the Congress to provide full funding for NSF so that they can continue to make these kinds of investments in America’s future."

ITR Grants to UI researchers:

• Tamer Basar, Coordinated Science Laboratory, $3,410,000; Hierarchical and Reconfigurable Schemes for Distributed Control Over Heterogeneous Networks
  
  
• Roy Campbell, department of computer science, $3,300,000; Active Information Spaces Based on Ubiquitous Computing
  
  
• James Eckstein, department of physics, $267,566; Toward Agile Information Networks: Electro-Optic Frequency Shifter
  
  
• Bruce Hajek, Coordinated Science Laboratory, $1,814,162; High-Speed Distributed Wireless Communication Networks
  
  
• Hong Hua, Beckman Institute, $294,856; Development of Head-mounted Projective Display for Distance Collaborative Environments
  
  
• Thomas Huang, Coordinated Science Laboratory, $3,152,068; Multimodal Human Computer Interaction: Toward a Proactive Computer
  
  
• Jay Kesan, College of Law/electrical and computer engineering, $297,345; Understanding "Code": How Information Technologies Regulate Behavior
  
  
• Robin Kravets, computer science, $497,425; Environment-Aware Communication for Mobile Grouped Devices
  
  
• Pierre Moulin, Coordinated Science Laboratory, $499,633; Theory and Design of Watermarking Codes
  
  
• David Padua, computer science, $490,000; An Optimizing Compiler for Languages With Programmable Memory Models
  
  
• Clinton Potter, Beckman Institute, $447,751; Bugscope: An IT Test Bed for Sustaining Educational Outreach
  
  
• William Sanders, Coordinated Science Lab, $1,800,000; Experimental Validation of Large-Scale Networked Software Systems
  
  
• Josep Torrellas, computer science, $499,973; Intelligent Memory Architectures and Algorithms to Crack the Protein Folding Problem
  
  
• Michael Twidale, Library and Information Science, $393,898; Interfaces for Supporting Over-the-Shoulder Learning