Virginia Vassilevska Williams facts for kids
Virginia Vassilevska Williams (born Virginia Panayotova Vassilevska) is a very smart computer scientist and mathematician. She studies how computers can solve problems faster and more efficiently. She is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Professor Williams is famous for her amazing discoveries in how to do "matrix multiplication" super fast. She also works on "dynamic algorithms," which are ways for computers to quickly update solutions when things change. She helped create a field called "fine-grained complexity," which looks at the exact time it takes for algorithms to run.
Quick facts for kids
Virginia Vassilevska Williams
|
|
|---|---|
Vassilevska Williams at Oberwolfach, 2012
|
|
| Nationality | Bulgarian American |
| Alma mater |
|
| Known for |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral advisor | Guy Blelloch |
Contents
Becoming a Computer Scientist
Virginia Williams grew up in Bulgaria. She went to a German-language high school in Sofia. After high school, she moved to the United States.
She studied at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and earned her bachelor's degree in 2003. Then, she went to Carnegie Mellon University for her Ph.D. She finished her Ph.D. in 2008. Her main project was about finding fast ways to solve "path problems" in graphs. Her professor, Guy Blelloch, helped her with this work.
Working at Top Universities
After finishing her studies, Professor Williams did research at the Institute for Advanced Study. She also worked at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2013, she became a professor at Stanford University. Later, in 2017, she moved to MIT. There, she became an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Making Computers Faster
Professor Williams is best known for her work on "matrix multiplication." This is a basic math problem that computers do all the time. Imagine you have two big grids of numbers, called matrices. Matrix multiplication is how you combine them.
In 2011, she found a new, faster way to multiply these matrices. This was a huge deal! Her method was faster than the best one known for 24 years. She even combined her ideas with another scientist's work to make it even faster.
The Fastest Way to Multiply Matrices
As of 2023, Professor Williams and her team have found the fastest way known to multiply matrices. Their method helps computers solve many complex problems much quicker. This research is very important for areas like computer graphics and scientific calculations.
Awards and Recognition
Professor Williams has received many honors for her work. From 2009 to 2011, she was an NSF Computing Innovation Fellow. In 2017, she won a Sloan Research Fellowship. These awards recognize brilliant young scientists.
She was also invited to speak at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians. This is a very important event where top mathematicians from all over the world share their discoveries.
Family Life
Virginia Williams comes from a family of mathematicians. Her parents, Panayot Vassilevski and Tanya Kostova-Vassilevska, are also applied mathematicians.
She is married to Ryan Williams. He is also a computer science professor at MIT. They have even worked together on research in the field of "fine-grained complexity."
