Luis F. G. Sarmenta, Ph.D.

lfgs @ mit . edu

Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA, USA

Biography

Last May 2007, I celebrated  the 25th anniversary of my first learning how to program.  (I self-studied BASIC on a TRS-80 Color Computer during the summer break between 4th and 5th grades).  Since that time, it's been quite an interesting journey filled with many memorable and educational experiences that I am thankful for.  And I continue to have more.  Here are some of them so far:

• 1982 – Wrote my first computer program [I still have it on paper somewhere in the Philippines.  I hope to post a copy of it some time ...]
• 1988-1993 -- Developed anti-virus programs (VIREX / VIR-X Plus) which were used by thousands of users in the Philippines
• 1992 -- Joined the faculty of Ateneo de Manila University, first teaching Physics, then Computer Science
• 1993 -- Was a founding participant in the PhilNet/PHNet project, which eventually became the first national Internet backbone of the Philippines.
  
  
• 1993 -- Started graduate studies at MIT.  Joined the Computer Architecture Group at MIT LCS.
• 1995 – Received S.M. (Master of Science) degree from MIT.  Master’s thesis on a hardware technique called “rational clocking”
• 1995 -- Summer intern at Microsoft in Redmond, WA
• 1997 -- Joined the MIT Japan program, and  worked for the summer at the Electrotechnical Laboratory at AIST, Tsukuba, contributing to the HORB object request broker
• 1996-2001 -- Did Ph.D. dissertation on "volunteer computing".  Code-named project “Project Bayanihan,” after a Filipino tradition of  communal unity and cooperation.  Several novel results include: a browser- and Java-based volunteer computing system, new programming models and APIs, and techniques and algorithms for tolerating the presence of malicious volunteers.  Paper on "sabotage-tolerance" won a Best Paper Finalist award at the ACM/IEEE CCGrid 2001 symposium.
• 2001 -- Received Ph.D. degree in EECS from MIT. 
  
  
• 2001 -- Re-joined the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.
• 2002 -- Won, with student team, the world-wide 1st place award in the Microsoft .NET Best competition, academic category (US$125,000 total value for the university) for Bayanihan Computing .NET (mirror page), one of the first projects to demonstrate the use of  web services for grid computing.  
• 2002 – Started EVES (later Lectix) lecture viewer project (joint work with Prof. Charles Leiserson of MIT and students at MIT and Ateneo).
• 2002-2003 – Served as Chair of the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) at Ateneo de Manila. 
• 2003 – Founded the Ateneo Java Wireless Competency Center (AJWCC), an R&D center at Ateneo de Manila University in partnership with Sun Microsystems and Smart Communications, the largest mobile carrier company in the Philippines (in terms of subscribers). Produced 30 commercially released J2ME, SMS, MMS, and location-based applications and services in its first 2 years (developed by Ateneo students, faculty, and alumni, and marketed by Smart and other companies).
• 2003 -- Co-started the MedGrid project with AIST in Japan, investigating medical applications of grid computing.   This project has now continued on to become part of the ongoing ONCO-MEDIA project involving institutions in Europe and Asia.
• 2005 – Visited the Logistical Computing and Internetworking (LoCI) Laboratory at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and contributed to the LoDN project.
• 2005 – Received the ASEAN Young Scientists and Technologist Award
  
  
• 2005 – Re-joined MIT CSAIL as a Research Scientist, and started co-leading the Trusted Computing project, under the  MIT-Quanta T-Party project. 
• See some of our papers and software here.
• 2006 – Co-invented techniques for unlimited virtual monotonic counters and offline count-limited objects using small secure devices (like a TPM or smartcard)
• 2007 – Released TPM/J Java API for the Trusted Platform Module
• 2007 – Served as Invited Expert in the Trusted Computing Group TPM and Mobile working groups
• 2007 – Co-PI in an NSF CyberTrust grant awarded project (with Srini Devadas, PI, and Marten van Dijk, co-PI)
  
  
• Present
• continuing to co-lead Trusted Computing research at MIT CSAIL
• continuing to advise Ateneo de Manila University on research and teaching projects and directions
• co-instructing, MIT D-Lab ICT for Development (ICT4D)  course, MIT Spring 2008.

Recent Awards

Major Awards / Recognition

• ASEAN Young Scientists and Technologists Award. Awarded by the ASEAN (only every three years). August 2005.
• Outstanding Young Scientist Award.  Awarded by the Philippine National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), July 2005.  
• NAST-DuPont Talent Search for Young Scientists Award.  Awarded by the Philippine National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and DuPont Far East, Inc., July 2003.

Competitions / Best Papers

• SIMagine 2008 Innovation Award.  "Medi-SIM: Medical Tools and Applications using SIM cards" [joint work with Mike Gordon, MIT.] Awarded by Gemalto NV at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 2008.
• AEN Award.  "An Enhanced Lecture Viewer for e-Learning" (video) [joint work with students from Ateneo de Manila University]
  Asia e-Learning Network Conference, Singapore, Dec. 2004.  (Also Notable Paper Award at the 3rd National Conference on e-Learning. Philippine e-Learning Society, Aug. 2004.)  
• Microsoft ".NET Best" Awards, Worldwide 1st place Winner, Academic Category (US $125,000 total prize value for the school).
   Bayanihan Computing .NET: Grid Computing with XML Web Services" [joint work with student team from Ateneo de Manila University.] Awarded by Microsoft Corporation, USA, Aug. 2002. 
•  ACM/IEEE CCGrid'01 Best Paper Finalist Award.  "Sabotage-Tolerance Mechanisms for Volunteer Computing Systems"
  ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid 2001), Brisbane, Australia, May 2001. 
  (Links:  original  / journal)

Publications

Last updated:
April 2008