CLASS NOTES
1963
Team BellKor, made up of Robert Bell ’72 and Chris Volinsky from the
Michael Wilson is co-producer of the play “A Steady Rain,”
Statistics Research Group in AT&T Labs, and former AT&T employee Ye-
which opened on Broadway (Gerald Schoenfeld Theater) Sept. 29 for
huda Koren, won the first two $50,000 Progress Prizes that served as
a limited 12-week engagement. It is described as “a new American
incentive for competitors. BellKor earned the best score at the compe-
play that tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends
tition’s one-year anniversary with
and their differing accounts of a few harrowing days that changed
an improvement of 8.43 percent. At
their lives forever.” The play was written by Keith Huff and stars Hugh
year two, they achieved the top spot
Jackman and Daniel Craig, the latter of whom made his Broadway
by collaborating with BigChaos of
debut.
Austria (in 81st place at year one) to
1966
Papillo
mavirus
Ja
Don Chamberlin, adjunct professor of computer science in
achieve a 9.44 percent improvement.
ck
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the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC), re-
T&T
Robert said, “When we started,
e th
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ly
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.
ceived a 2009 Fellow Award from the Computer
none of us knew anything about the field
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2
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of recommender systems, much less
5-
2
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History Museum in October.
6
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Courtesy of A
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c
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recommending movies. In part, we did
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Don, a 2003 HMC Outstanding Alumni Award
Robert Bell ’72
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well because our ignorance made us ad-
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winner, was honored for his fundamental work
r
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on Structured Query Language (SQL) and data-
dress the problem from new angles. It was also invaluable to work on a
base architectures. SQL, the most widely used
multi-disciplinary team including statisticians and computer scientists.”
computer language for managing data in rela-
Robert has worked at AT&T for over 10 years doing data analysis and
model building for a variety of AT&T projects and theoretical research for
Courtesy of UCSC
tional databases, was developed at IBM, where
Don Chamberlin ’66 Chamberlin spent most of his career. He is a fel-
academia.
low emeritus at the IBM Almaden Research Center
He offers this insight to fellow Mudders, “Don’t be afraid to take chanc-
and served as a Regent’s Professor at UCSC in 2009.
es on work in new areas; that’s the way you continue to learn.”
The Fellow Award represents the highest achievement in comput-
1974 Dan Kalman spent the past few years examining gaps in
ing, honoring the innovators who have forever changed the world
Marden’s Theorem and developed a straight-forward, understandable
with their accomplishments. Chosen on the basis of accomplishment,
proof. The resulting paper, “An Elementary Proof of Marden’s Theorem,”
Fellows are nominated by the museum’s community and selected by
was awarded the Lester R. Ford Award by the Mathematical Association of
a panel composed of museum staff, historians, industry leaders and
America (MAA). Marden’s Theorem is a mathematical theorem that relates
other Computer History Museum Fellows.
the roots of a polynomial p(x) and those of its derivative p´(x) in a complex
Don earned his B.S. in engineering at HMC and M.S. and Ph.D.
plane. The winning paper was published in The American Mathematical
degrees in electrical engineering at Stanford University. At IBM
Monthly (vol. 115, no. 4, April 2008, pp. 330–338). “The extraordinary
Research, he contributed to the development of IBM’s early relational
lucidity of Kalman’s argument combines with his historical scholarship on
database technology. His research has focused on languages and
the theorem’s origins and the charm of this surprising result to make this
standards for database management and document processing, and
article a model of mathematical exposition,” remarked the MAA.
he is the author of two books on IBM database products. At UCSC, he
The Lester R. Ford Awards are made to authors of expository articles
teaches computer programming classes.
published in The American Mathematical Monthly. The Awards are named
1972 Mathematics alumnus Robert Bell is a member of a multi-
for Lester R. Ford, Sr., a distinguished mathematician and past president
national team that won the $1 million Netflix Prize. Team “BellKor’s
of the MAA.
Pragmatic Chaos” (made up of teams BellKor of AT&T Labs, New Jer-
Dan has been a member of the mathematics faculty at American Uni-
sey, and BigChaos of Austria) has created the best recommendation
versity, in Washington, D.C. since 1993. Prior to that, he worked for eight
software to accurately predict the movies Netflix customers would
years in the aerospace industry and taught at the University of Wisconsin,
like.
Green Bay. During the 1996-1997 academic year, he served as an associ-
Netflix initiated the global competition in October 2006 to improve
ate executive director of the MAA.
by 10 percent its movie matching system, which spans the 100,000
Dan has a B.S. from HMC and a Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin, Madison.
DVD titles in its catalog. The contest generated entries from more
He is the author of two MAA books, Elementary Mathematical Models and
than 2,500 teams.
Uncommon Mathematical Excursions.
continued on page 30
2228 Harvey Mudd College FALL/WINTER 2009
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