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UW CSE Ph.D. alum Stefan Savage wins 2013 SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award

The Mark Weiser Award was created in 2001 by the computer systems research community, to be given annually to an individual who has demonstrated creativity and innovation in computer systems research. The recipient must have begun his or her career no earlier than 20 years prior to nomination. The award is named in honor of Mark Weiser, a computing visionary recognized for his research accomplishments during his career at Xerox PARC.

Today, the 2013 SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award was presented to UW CSE Ph.D. alumnus (and UCSD professor) Stefan Savage. Quoting from the nomination materials:

“In the last decade, as we have grown increasingly dependent on the Internet, the Internet has become a vehicle for large-scale attacks – worms, viruses, botnets, massive flooding attacks, etc.

“Stefan Savage is, by far, the most creative person working in the hugely important fields of network security, privacy, and reliability. He has an uncanny ability to ask exactly the right question, propose exactly the right solution, and see that solution through to impact.

“Stefan’s work has not been a single contribution, but rather a collection of individually high-impact contributions that point in a single critically important direction: analyzing Internet attacks and attackers as elements of an integrated technological, societal, and economic system, and recognizing that no one-dimensional intervention has a prayer of succeeding. Our inability to select a single ‘greatest hit’ does not make The Beatles a lesser band; rather, we recognize that any one of their better songs would have been sufficient to catapult a lesser band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame …

“Stefan stands in the very top echelon of the extraordinary group of previous Weiser Award recipients.”

Savage is the fourth UW CSE Ph.D. alum to receive the Weiser Award in its 13-year history – an incredible affirmation of UW’s track record in preparing leaders in computer systems. Brian Bershad (now with Google in Moscow) was recognized in 2004. Tom Anderson (now a UW CSE faculty member) was recognized in 2005. Jeff Dean (Google) was recognized in 2012.

Congratulations Stefan! Thanks for making us look good!