Peter J. Varman, professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and of computer science at Rice University, has been named a Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
Varman was recognized by the IEEE for his “contributions to input/output scheduling algorithms for storage systems.” He earned his Ph.D. in ECE from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983 and joined the Rice faculty that same year.
“We now have a unique distinction where all of our full professors are Fellows of their professional societies,” said Ashutosh Sabharwal, professor and chair of ECE. “Many are Fellows of multiple societies and quite a few are eligible for several more. Expect more good news in the next couple of years.”
Varman has served as program director at the National Science Foundation, scholar-in-residence at VMware in Palo Alto, and as a visitor at the Intel and IBM research labs. His technical contributions include the mClock scheduling algorithm developed with a graduate student and used as the IO scheduler in the widely deployed VSphere virtualization product since 2014.
He also created the hierarchical parallel merging algorithm adopted as the benchmark parallel sort in the multi-core standard template library. He serves as an editor of the Journal of Combinational Optimization and was associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computers from 2000 to 2006.
IEEE is the largest association of technical professionals in the world, with more than 423,000 members in some 160 countries. The Fellow grade is the organization’s highest level of membership and is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon researchers “with extraordinary records of accomplishment in any of the IEEE fields of interest.” Fewer than 0.1 percent of voting members are selected annually to become Fellows.