Klara Nahrstedt, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor in the Department of Computer Science, has been chosen as director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) at Illinois. The CSL is a premier, multidisciplinary research laboratory that focuses on information technology at the crossroads of computing, control, and communications.
Written by
Klara Nahrstedt, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor in the Department of Computer Science, has been chosen as director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at Illinois. Her appointment is effective February 16, 2015, pending approval by the University’s Board of Trustees.
“I think Professor Nahrstedt is the right person to lead CSL to the next level,” explained College of Engineering Dean Andreas Cangellaris. “She is an exceptional scholar with an international reputation and a substantial record of administrative and leadership experiences. As CSL’s acting director since July 2013, she has developed a bold vision for the institution’s role in tackling some of the most pressing interdisciplinary societal challenges.”
The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a premier, multidisciplinary research laboratory that focuses on information technology at the crossroads of computing, control, and communications. A renowned leader in the area of systems and networking, Nahrstedt is a long-time member of the Information Trust Institute and a major contributor to its successful growth as one of the world’s most influential institutes on information trust and cybersecurity.
Nahrstedt, who joined the Illinois faculty in 1995, is a leading researcher in multimedia systems. Her fundamental work on energy-efficient dynamic soft-real-time CPU scheduling for mobile multimedia devices, and development of first energy-efficient OS for mobile multimedia devices, GRACE-OS, has been widely recognized in academia and industry.
In the field of 3D tele-immersive systems and networking, Nahrstedt was the first to develop a multi-view 3D video adaptation framework for bandwidth management and view-casting protocols for multi-view 3D video. She developed new metrics for 3D immersive video and the first comprehensive framework based on sound theoretical underpinnings for Quality of Experience in Distributed Interactive Multimedia Environments.
Nahrstedt received her BA in mathematics (1984) and a MSc degree (1985) in numerical analysis from Humboldt University, Berlin. She was a research scientist in the Institute for Informatik in Berlin until 1990. In 1995, she received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Computer and Information Science. She was twice elected chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Multimedia. She is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow. Her honors include the 2009 Humboldt Fellow Research Award, the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, the 2013 ACM Fellow recognition, and induction into the German National Academy of Sciences in 2014.