Wednesday, August 27, 2014
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science Ph.D. candidate Martin Derka was awarded a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, worth up to $150,000 over three years to support his work searching for error-correcting codes that improve the reliability of digital communication.
The Vanier program supports transformational research and attracts world-class students working on a PhD. Each award is granted through one of three funding agencies: The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
"Martin has been working on representations of planar graphs as intersection graphs of strings. He already has a major result that greatly simplifies the proof that planar graphs are in 1-STRING and achieves a much better resolution," said his supervisor, Therese Beidl. "We are now working on representing planar graphs as segment intersection graph where the drawings have small resolution."
The University of Waterloo received nine Vanier awards in total. A comprehensive list of award winners can be found on Waterloo News.
