Chris Johnson, director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute at the University of Utah College of Engineering, was a featured speaker in March at a Library of Congress symposium titled, “Computing Research that Changed the World: Reflections and Perspectives.” During the invitation-only symposium, Johnson discussed the rapid evolution of visualization techniques and the scientific understanding they have facilitated.
Johnson said that in the past ten years, modeling and visualization have become valuable tools for advanced surgical practice and that physicians are coming to him to obtain access.
The symposium was organized by the Computing Community Consortium, a subsidiary of the Computing Research Association, an association of more than 200 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies.
The goal of the symposium was to demonstrate that “computing research has made game-changing advances in the last two decades, from which we can extract lessons for structuring future programs to sustain that track record.”
Johnson spoke during one of four sessions: “The Transformation of the Sciences via Computation.” Other sessions included: “The Internet and the World Wide Web,” “Evolving Foundations,” and “Computing Everywhere!”