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Kim Hazelwood one of top young innovators

Original Article | News

As appeared in UVA Today, August 30, 2010

By Zak Richards

Kim Hazelwood, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been recognized by Technology Review magazine as one of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

The magazine, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cited her work in developing a run-time adaptation tool that allows computers to rewrite software programs while they're running.

A panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review selected Hazelwood from more than 300 nominees. The annual "TR35" list includes young researchers who are changing the world through medicine, computing, communications, nanotechnology and more.

Hazelwood's research in run-time adaptation will help to ensure that personal computers' speed and reliability improvements continue into the foreseeable future. While these consumer benefits are on the more distant horizon, computer scientists are already heavily using Hazelwood's research and software tools.

In collaboration with Intel Corp. and a team of researchers, Hazelwood helped to develop "Pin," the name of her software tool. The project has an active online community, and the tool has been downloaded more than 45,000 times by researchers, teachers and students. The research paper behind Pin has been cited more than 600 times in related academic research.

"People are using this work as the starting point for their own research in the field," Hazelwood said. "They're using it for applications ranging from cyber security to computer architecture to program analysis. Basically, anything you can imagine you'd ever like to do to a program, you can accomplish with this tool."

Traditionally, researchers looked at computers' various application and hardware layers in isolation. In contrast, run-time adaptation facilitates communication between the layers. For example, the tool allows a computer's underlying hardware layer, which is much better at detecting an overheating problem, to communicate with the operating system, which is a much better place to solve the problem.

"Each year, Technology Review selects 35 innovators under the age of 35 who we believe are transforming technology," editor-in-chief and publisher Jason Pontin said. "Discovering these amazing young men and women is one of the highlights of the year for us. We celebrate their success and look forward to their continued advancement of technology in their respective fields."

Hazelwood and the other TR35 winners for 2010 will be featured in the September/October issue of Technology Review and online at www.technologyreview.com/tr35/. In addition, the EmTech@MIT 2010 Conference, to be held Sept. 21-23 at MIT, will honor the winners with an awards ceremony and in a series of "Meet the TR35" presentations.

"Pin is one of the most widely used software tools for instrumenting and understanding the performance of complex software applications," U.Va. computer science professor Jack Davidson said. "Kim and the group at Intel should be applauded for making this extremely useful tool available for use by the computer science research community."

"In addition to being a high-achieving young faculty member, Kim is a great role model for women graduate students in computer science," said Mary Lou Soffa, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science. "Her research strengthens our department and U.Va. and helps to inspire other young women who would like to follow a similar path."

Past TR35 honorees at U.Va. include Shayn Peirce-Cottler, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Richard Kent, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Additional information about past and present TR35 winners and judges is available at www.technologyreview.com/tr35/.

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