Randal E. Bryant (born October 27, 1952) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

noted for his research on formally verifying

digital hardware Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usually ...

and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. Bryant has been a faculty member at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

since 1984. He served as the

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the School of Computer Science (SCS) at Carnegie Mellon from 2004 to 2014. Dr. Bryant retired and became a Founders University Professor Emeritus on June 30th, 2020. Over the years, Dr. Bryant has received many recognitions for his research on hardware and software verification as well as

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

s and

computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...

. His 1986 paper on symbolic Boolean manipulation using Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) has the highest citation count of any publication in the

Citeseer CiteSeerX (formerly called CiteSeer) is a public search engine and digital library for scientific and academic papers, primarily in the fields of computer and information science. CiteSeer's goal is to improve the dissemination and access of ac ...

database of computer science literature. In 2009 Bryant was awarded the

Phil Kaufman Award The Phil Kaufman Award was established in 1994 by the EDA Consortium (now the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community) to recognize individuals for their impact on electronic design by their contributions to electronic de ...

by the EDA Consortium "for his seminal technological breakthroughs in the area of formal verification."

Early life and education

Bryant was born on October 27, 1952 and is the son of John H. Bryant and Barbara Everitt Bryant, and the grandson of

William Littell Everitt William Littell Everitt (April 14, 1900 – September 6, 1986) was a noted American electrical engineer, educator, and founding member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1933. He was ad ...

, former dean of the

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

department at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

(1949–68). His sister is Lois Bryant, a well-known textile artist (https://loisbryantstudio.com/home.html). Bryant was raised in

Birmingham, Michigan Birmingham is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Detroit located along the Woodward Corridor ( M-1). As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,103. History The area comprising what is now the ...

. Starting in 1970, he attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where he received his B.S. in Applied Mathematics from in 1973. His master thesis o
Simulation of Packet Communication Architecture Computer Systems
published in 1977, is known to be one of the first publications on distributed simulation. He received his PhD from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1981.

Career

* From 1981 to 1984, Bryant was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. His research areas included

VLSI Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) c ...

circuit models, logic simulation, and circuit testing. He also taught courses in computer architecture, digital systems theory, and computer algorithms. * In 1984, Bryant joined the faculty at

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People * Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyt ...

as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. He continued his research on VLSI simulation, VLSI circuit verification, symbolic manipulation, and parallel computation. * He was a Visiting Research Fellow, Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd., Kawasaki, Japan from 1990–1991. * In 1992, he became the University Professor at Carnegie Mellon. Professor Bryant taught

Computer Architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...

from 1992 to 1997. * He served as

of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University from 2004 to 2014. During his tenure, the combined enrollment at SCS increased more than 50 percent. * In 2003, Bryant was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for contributions to symbolic simulation and logic verification. * He was on the Engineering and Computer Science jury for the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to re ...

from 2011 to 2013 * In 2014–2015, he was the Assistant Director for Information Technology Research and Development at the

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, where he did work on robotics, machine learning, high-performance computing, semiconductor technology, and cloud computing and provided analysis and advice on Big Data. * Bryant is currently a professor at the School of Computer Science. His most recent research fields include formal hardware and software verification, system testing, and computer science education. He teaches the course ''15-213: Introduction to Computer Systems'' with Professor David R. O'Hallaron. Their book ''Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective'', which introduces students to the hardware, operating system, compiler, and computer networks, is used by over 300 universities worldwide.

Research and publications

* Over the past years, Bryant has done many research on formal hardware and software verification as well as computer systems. His most well-known publication in 1986 was
"Graph-Based Algorithms for Boolean Function Manipulation"
', in which

binary decision diagram In computer science, a binary decision diagram (BDD) or branching program is a data structure that is used to represent a Boolean function. On a more abstract level, BDDs can be considered as a compressed representation of sets or relations. ...

(BDDs) was presented as a novel data structure for representing Boolean functions and manipulation algorithms. BDDs has been used extensively in fields such as digital circuit testing and synthesis and artificial intelligence planning. According to the famous Computer Scientist

Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...

, BDDs was deemed as "one of the only really fundamental data structures that came out in the last twenty-five years". Following his research, he publishe
another paper
on a tutorial and update on BDDs in 1992. His paper on BDDs was awarded for having the highest citation count in the

database of any computer science literature. * His work in verifying digital circuits-seminal work has received numerous awards from

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

and other professional societies (see below). His paper on ''Formal verification by symbolic evaluation of partially-ordered trajectories'' was published in 1995. The method of symbolic trajectory evaluation described in his paper has been widely adopted to the industry, notably used by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

. Starting in 2004, Bryant has been promoting new research initiatives in data-intensive computing. * Bryant and Professor David R. O'Hallaron at Carnegie Mellon University together wrote the book
"Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective,"
' in which they take a novel approach on teaching computer systems. Rather than emphasizing on the design and implementation of the systems, the book focuses on teaching students how systems - architecture, compilers, operating systems, and computer networking - affect the behavior and performance of the program. This book, now in its third edition, has been translated into Korean, Chinese, Macedonian and Russian and is in use by institutions all over the world.

Awards and honors

* Bryant is a fellow of the

and the ACM. * He is a member of the

and the American Academy of Arts and Science. * In 1998 he received the ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award (along with

Edmund M. Clarke Edmund Melson Clarke, Jr. (July 27, 1945 – December 22, 2020) was an American computer scientist and academic noted for developing model checking, a method for formally verifying hardware and software designs. He was the FORE Systems Professor ...

, Ken McMillan, and Allen Emerson) * In 1989, he was awarded the IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize for the best paper appearing in any IEEE publication in the preceding year (1987). * In 2007, Bryant received the IEEE Emmanuel R. Piore Award for his research on tools to verify semiconductor's designs prior to their manufacture. * In 2009, Bryant was awarded the EDAC/IEEE Phil Kaufman for his "seminal technological breakthroughs in the area of formal verification". * In 2010, he received the A. Richard Newton Technical Award in Electronic Design Automation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant, Randal American computer scientists 1952 births Living people Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni American electrical engineers