November 9, 2023
By Patricia Waldron
The Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation (ISSNAF) has selected Giulia Guidi, assistant professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, for the 2023 Mario Gerla Award for Research in Computer Science.
Guidi received the award for her contributions in the field of high-performance computing for large-scale computational sciences. The prize is one of six Young Investigator Awards given annually by ISSNAF.
Through her work, Guidi helps researchers tackle scientific problems that require substantial computational power, especially in the field of computational biology. She develops algorithms and software infrastructures on parallel machines that expedite data processing, making high-performance computing more accessible.
"I would like to thank my mentors, collaborators, and students whose support, guidance, and enthusiasm have been crucial to my career," said Guidi. "I would also like to thank the selection committee for their work and for recognizing the potential of my research to advance genomics through computation. Professor Mario Gerla's legacy is an inspiration, and I am determined to continue in his spirit."
Guidi attended the awards ceremony at the 2023 ISSNAF Annual Event, held Nov. 8 at the Embassy of Italy in Washington D.C. Following the ceremony, Mariangela Zappia, the Ambassador of Italy to the U.S., held a reception at her private residence.
The memorial award was established in 2019 by the family of Mario Gerla, a founding ISSNAF member and professor of computer science at UCLA.
Guidi is also a graduate field faculty in the Department of Computational Biology and the Center for Applied Math at Cornell. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2022. Additionally, Guidi is part of the Performance and Algorithms Research Group in the Applied Math and Computational Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she is an affiliate faculty member.
"I look forward to pushing the boundaries of high-performance computing," Guidi said, "and using computation to work toward a better future for science and medicine."
Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.