Letter from the Director, May 2021

Dear friends,

Our Spring 2021 programs on Satisfiability: Theory, Practice, and Beyond and on Theoretical Foundations of Computer Systems drew to a close earlier this month. It has been an unusual and challenging year in so many ways, brightened by the wide range of people around the world who have been able to participate in our workshops and lectures. As we make the final preparations to welcome a group of researchers to the Simons Institute in person for our Summer Cluster in Quantum Computation in June, we reflect gratefully on all of you in our research community, who have contributed to the excitement and dynamism of the Institute even in lockdown.

We’re delighted to announce the launch of Breakthroughs, a new lecture series at the Institute, focusing on major new advances in the field. The series kicks off this summer with talks by Virginia Vassilevska Williams and Yuansi Chen. 

In this issue of the newsletter, we have the latest installment in Senior Scientist Prasad Raghavendra’s popular column, Theory at the Institute and Beyond. 

In our SimonsTV corner, we are pleased to share the video of our panel discussion on the film Coded Bias, exploring issues of bias and fairness in algorithms. We also have the latest episode of Polylogues, on decoding communication in nonhuman species. 

Wishing you a joyous summer of reunions and new beginnings,
Shafi

Shafi Goldwasser
Director, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing