"Sleep is so Overrated!"

Gabriel Robins
Professor of Computer Science

Phone: (434) 982-2207
Fax: (434) 982-2214
Email: robins@cs.virginia.edu
Office: 210 Olsson Hall, UVa

VLSI CAD, algorithms, computational geometry, optimization, bioinformatics, and RFID

abriel Robins received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 1992, where he received an IBM Fellowship and a Distinguished Teaching Award. He then joined the University of Virginia as Assistant Professor of Computer Science, where he received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, a Packard Foundation Fellowship, a Lilly Foundation University Teaching Fellowship, the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize, an All-University Outstanding Teacher Award, a Faculty Mentor Award, a Virginia Engineering Foundation Faculty Appreciation Award, a two-year early promotion to Associate Professor, and the Walter N. Munster Endowed Chair. He served on the U.S. Army Science Board, and is an alumnus of the Defense Science Study Group, an advisory panel to the U.S. Department of Defense. He has created the CS Web Team, the UVa Computer Museum, the CS Department Lounge, and the CS Poster Drive. He served on the program committees of several leading conferences, and is Associate Editor of the flagship journal IEEE Transaction on VLSI. He has directed over twenty students, and authored or co-authored one book, two book chapters, and over 90 refereed papers.

obins' research spans the field of algorithms. Recent advances in VLSI circuit technology have resulted in new requirements for computer-aided design methodology. With this in mind, Robins investigates new directions in VLSI circuit layout, with a focus on high-performance issues. His results include best-known approximations for Steiner trees, new Moving-Target Traveling Salesman formulations, and near-optimal algorithms for computationally-difficult problems such as minimum-cost routing, cost-performance trade-offs, circuit testing, and improved manufacturability. Gabriel Robins also investigates other topics in algorithms and combinatorial optimization, with applications to areas such as computational geometry, pattern detection, bioinformatics, and radio-frequency identification (RFID).

Tighter Bounds for Graph Steiner Tree Approximation, Robins, G. and Zelikovsky, A., SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Volume 19, Number 1, 2005, pp. 122-134. Winner of the SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize

Compressible Area Fill Synthesis Chen, Y., Kahng, A. B., Robins, G., and Zelikovsky, A., and Zheng, Y., IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Volume 24, Number 8, 2005, pp. 1169-1187.

The Moving-Target Traveling Salesman Problem, Helvig, C. S., Robins, G., and Zelikovsky, A., Journal of Algorithms, Volume 49, Number 1, October 2003, pp. 153-174.

An Improved Approximation Scheme for the Group Steiner Problem, Helvig, C. S., Robins, G., and Zelikovsky, A., Networks, Volume 37, Number 1, January 2001, pp. 8-20.

Generalized Neighbor-Joining: More Reliable Phylogenetic Tree Reconstruction, W. Pearson, G. Robins, and T. Zhang, Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 16, Number 6, 1999, pp. 806-816.