Bolesław Karol Szymański (born 22 April 1950 in

Pasłęk Pasłęk (pronounced ; formerly known in Polish as Holąd Pruski, , Old Prussian: ''Pāistlauks'') is a historic town in northern Poland, within Elbląg County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In 2017, the town had 12,298 registered inhabit ...

) is the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at the Department of Computer Science and the Founding Head of the Center for Network Science and Technology,

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

. He is known for multiple contributions to

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

, including Szymański's algorithm.

Current Work

Szymański is the Director of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center, which studies the fundamentals of social and cognitive network science; the center is a part of the Network Science Collaborative Technology Alliance funded by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

. He is also the Principal Investigator in the

International Technology Alliance The International Technology Alliance (ITA) refers to a series of research programs that were jointly sponsored by UK Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) and the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL). One such program focusing on network sciences NIS-I ...

.ITA website - accessed Jan 2011
/ref> His projects include dynamic processes on networks, hidden groups in social networks, sensor network protocols and algorithms, and large-scale parallel and distributed computing and simulation. He received ITA Distinguished Service Award in 2007. Szymański is also one of the Principals in the

MilkyWay@home MilkyWay@home is a volunteer computing project in the astrophysics category, running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform. Using spare computing power from over 38,000 computers run by over 27,000 active volu ...

project that seeks to model the streams of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy that were pulled from nearby galaxies (e.g. Saggitarius). Szymański was also a visiting professor at

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, and Wrocław University of Technology and a member of the

Kosciuszko Foundation The Kosciuszko Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City. It was created by Stephen Mizwa to fund programs that promote Polish-American intellectual and artistic exchange. History The Polish American Scholarship Committee ...

Collegium of Eminent Scientists of Polish Origin and Ancestry.

Current Positions

His current positions (Jan 2011) are : *Claire and Roland W. Schmitt Distinguished Professor] of

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

*Director, Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center *Director
the Rensselaer Center for Network Science and Technology
(NEST) *Foreign Member,

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

*Editor-in-Chief
Scientific Programming
*Editorial Board
Scalable Computing: Practice and Experience
*Editorial Board
Computing and Informatics
*Editorial Board, Computer Science (journal)

Education

In 1968, Szymański won Gold Medal at the X

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

in Moscow, USSR. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Institute of Informatics of PAN, Warsaw in 1976. He pursued an academic career at

Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology () is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors (including 145 titular professors). The student body ...

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

, and

. He has been with

, Troy. NY, since 1985. In 1999, Szymański was elected an

IEEE Fellow , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

for his contributions to

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

and

distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...

and in 2003 he received the Wiley Distinguished Faculty Award. In 2007, Szymański received the Claire and Roland W. Schmitt Distinguished Professorship at

. In 2009, Szymański received the Wilkes Award and Medal for the best paper published in volume 52 of Computer Journal. Also, in 2009, he was elected a foreign member of the

and joined Division IV of Technical Sciences there.Professional CV - accessed Jan 2011
/ref>

References

External links

Home pageMilkyWay@home ProjectSocial Cognitive Network Academic Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Szymanski, Boleslaw Living people Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty Fellows of the IEEE 1950 births Polish emigrants to the United States People from Pasłęk