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David Steurer, assistant professor of computer science, has been awarded a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship to support research to find the "laws of efficient computation," which might settle a long-standing controversy in computer science and lead to a new way to solve some very hard problems. One of seven Microsoft fellowships given worldwide this year to support early career researchers, Steurer's award provides $200,000 for two years, along with access to software, invitations to conferences and engagements with Microsoft researchers. Cornell is second only to Stanford University in the number of faculty members receiving Microsoft fellowships, according to the Department of Computer Science - especially noteworthy in that the Cornell computer science department is smaller than Stanford's and others near the top of the list, they pointed out. An important goal in computer science is to find algorithms (methods to attack a problem) that make the most efficient use of computer time. Some problems can be so complicated that even the fastest computers would take until the end of the universe to complete the calculation. "It is not clear if we are just overlooking a cleverer algorithm that could solve those problems or if these problems are inherently intractable, meaning it doesn't matter how fast your computer is, you simply cannot solve it," Steurer explained. An example is optimization - finding the best combination of several variables while meeting various constraints.
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