A Public Lecture on October 26, 2009

Public Lecture (Open to faculty, students, and the general public)

The Whole May Be Less than the Sum of the Parts:
A Personal Perspective on the Rice-BCM Merger

Moshe Y. Vardi
Rice University

McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall, Rice University
October 26, 2009, 4-5:30pm
Map: www.rice.edu/maps
Parking: http://parking.rice.edu/visitors.cfm
Overflow room: Duncan Hall 1064
Webcast: http://webcast.rice.edu/webcast.php?action=details&event=2048

Abstract: Rice University has been engaged since August 2008 in intense negotiations with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) over a possible merger, motivated by the argument that such a merger "could produce many academic and scientific benefits" for both institutions. A Sept. 25, 2009, joint press release said that "We will work hard to bring our discussions to a successful conclusion over the next four months." In this talk, the speaker will offer his own analysis of the merger proposal, based on publicly available information.

Bio: Vardi is the George Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology Institute at Rice University. He is the co-recipient of three IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards, the ACM SIGACT Goedel Prize, the ACM Kanellakis Award, the ACM SIGMOD Codd Award, and the Blaise Pascal Medal. He is the author and co-author of over 350 technical papers, as well as two books: "Reasoning about Knowledge" and "Finite Model Theory and Its Applications". He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Science, and Academia Europaea. He holds honorary doctorates from the Saarland University in Germany and Orleans University in France.