Michael Forbes

About: I am a graduate student at MIT studying computer science. Specifically, I'm specifically exploring complexity theory, and more generally theoretical computer science, under Prof. Scott Aaronson.

Contact Info: I am most easily reached via email: first two letters of first name, last name, at the hostname of the webserver you are currently viewing (no www).

Academic Life:

• My CV: PDF
• Courses I have taken
• Academics:
  • Computer science graduate Student at MIT, 2009-Present
  • Majored in Mathematics at MIT (courses), 2005-2009
  • Montgomery Blair High School: Mathematics, Science and Technology Magnet Program, 2001-2005
• Research/Work:
  • Student Grader for Prof. Michael Sipser's Fall 2009 Theory of Computation course.
  • Proofread Oded Goldreich's forthcoming P, NP, and NP-Completeness: The Basics of Computational Complexity.
  • Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) under Prof. Scott Aaronson and working with Andy Drucker, proving that a previously unstudied decision problem (concerning whether a set of functions from set into itself generate a fixed-point free function) is PSPACE-complete, 2008-Present
  • Researcher of algorithms for covering array constructions (a certain type of array useful for software testing) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under Dr. James Lawrence, and Dr. Raghu Kacker, 2006-Present
  • Research Assistant under my Dad, Prof. Kevin Forbes writing Perl programs to analyze space-weather for purposes of correlating it to electricity prices. 2005-Present (sporadically)
  • Researcher of Computer Science Algorithms at the University of Maryland, College Park under Prof. Samir Khuller, 2004
  • Intern Web Procedure Revision System Developer using PHP/MySQL, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Goddard Space Flight Center under Dr. Richard Wesenberg, Systems Analyst, 2003
• Papers/Talks:
  • Fixed-point Free Functions : Michael Forbes, Andrew Drucker, and Scott Aaronson, Deciding fixed-point-free function generation is PSPACE-complete, in progress.
  • Covering Arrays (at NIST):
    • Michael Forbes, Jim Lawrence, Yu Lei, Raghu N. Kacker, and D. Richard Kuhn, Refining the in-parameter-order strategy for constructing covering arrays, Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology 113 (2008), no. 5, 287-297, PDF
    • Constructing Combinatorial Designs for Software Testing (Presented at the NIST SURF 2007 Colloquium): PDF
    • Combinatorial Designs and their Impact on Software Testing (Presented at the NIST SURF 2006 Colloquium): PDF
  • Space-weather: Kevin F. Forbes and O. C. St. Cyr, Solar activity and economic fundamentals: Evidence from 12 geographically disparate power grids, Space Weather 6 (2008), doi:10.1029/2007SW000350 (see acknowledgements for my contribution).
  • My Senior Research Project (at the Univ. of MD), Capacitated Vehicle Routing and the k-Delivery n-Traveling Salesman Problem: PDF/PS
  • Some independent research, A Note on the Non-Existence of Hamiltonian Cycles: PDF
• Awards:
  • Intel Science Talent Search Finalist, 2005
  • I even have my own asteroid!

My Activities:

• Undergraduate Math Association
• OrigaMIT - I won a Best Miniature Origami in 2007 for an Eastern Dragon designed by Joseph Wu
• I like to read witty comics:
  • New Yorker Cartoons
  • Piled Higher and Deeper
  • XKCD
• I like to collect witty quotes
• I like to think of comic ideas:
  • Warning: Laser in Use (note the footnote)

Older Activities:

• USA Computer Olympiad
• Computer Team
• BlazerNet
• Montgomery Blair Linux Users Group (MBLUG)

Last Updated: 2009-10-19