University of Washington computer science professor Luis Ceze and Microsoft principal research manager Karin Strauss have won a prestigious award from the Association of Computing Machinery for their work on DNA-based data storage systems.
- The 2020 Maurice Wilkes Award, given by ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture, recognizes outstanding contributions by members of the computer architecture field within the first two decades of their professional career. It’s named after the British computer scientist who built the first operational stored-program computer. This is the first time in the 22-year history of the award that multiple recipients have shared the honor.
- Since 2015, Ceze and Strauss have been co-directors of the Molecular Information Systems Laboratory, a joint Microsoft-UW effort to harness synthetic DNA as a storage medium for digital information. MISL’s researchers have encoded gigabytes’ worth of data in DNA, including a Miles Davis jazz tune and an OK Go music video — and last year, the team demonstrated an automated storage-and-retrieval system for DNA data.
- Strauss and Ceze also helped spearhead a project to turn DNA-coded images into a portrait of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin that was created by artist Kate Thompson. For more about Ceze, Strauss and their work, check out last year’s “Geek of the Week” profile of Ceze.
