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December 6, 2004 Vol. 75, no. 10F
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CS associate professor Luca Trevisan is from Rome,
where he studied at the Universita La Sapienza. Before coming
to UC Berkeley, he was a post-doctorate at MIT with the Theory
of Computing Group and at the Center for Discrete Mathematics
and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS). After that, he was
an assistant professor at Columbia University. He is interested
in theoretical computer science
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Professor
Minute with CS associate professor Luca Trevisan
If you decided not to
go into engineering, what other career would you have today?
In college, I was undecided between majoring in math or computer science.
I'm sure that even if I had studied mathematics I would have ended
up in academia, which really feels like my natural environment.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I enjoy movies, and I appreciate that San Francisco has no shortage
of film festivals. Every year (and I am sure I am forgetting one), we
have the Asian American film festival, the gay and lesbian one, the
international one, the Jewish one, the German one, the Arab one, and
the South Asian one. Last year, when a new horror film festival was
introduced, it was called "Hole in the Head," so that the
advertisement tagline could read "San Francisco needs a new film
festival like a 'Hole in the Head.'"
How can a student get through your hardest class?
I think it's important to start thinking about the homework early,
not the night before it's due. For a course like CS 170, it can
work miracles to read the questions, think about them, then put them
away for a day or two, and come back to them later.
What was your favorite movie this year and why?
Among documentaries, it was The Corporation. I thought the basic concept
- if a corporation is a 'legal person,' it's psychopathic
- was a very clever one. In fiction, I liked Goodbye Lenin a lot.
What CD are you listening to at the moment?
A collection of songs by Mina, mostly from the 1950s and 60s.
If you would like us to
feature your favorite professor, please e-mail his or her name to engnews@coe.berkeley.edu.
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