Associate Provost for The Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences,
William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Computer Science,
Founding Director of the Hariri Institute for Computing
Boston University
Azer Bestavros is the inaugural associate provost for the Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University. He is also the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in the Computer Science Department, which he joined in 1991 and chaired from 2000 to 2007. He holds an affiliated appointment in the department of electrical and computer engineering. Previously, Bestavros served as founding director of the Hariri Institute for Computing, established in 2010 to nucleate “a community of scholars who believe in the transformative potential of computational perspectives.”
Bestavros’ research in networking, distributed computing, cybersecurity, and high-assurance systems has produced seminal contributions, including pioneering web push caching through content distribution networks, the development of game-theoretic cloud resource management, and safety certification of networked software systems. His work has led to multiple patents, a successful start-up, and over $25 million in external funding. He has chaired several boards and initiatives, including the IEEE Technical Committee on the Internet, the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, the BU Council on Educational Technology & Learning Innovation, and the BU Data Science Initiative. His teaching and research have earned numerous distinctions, most notably ACM Sigmetrics’ inaugural Test of Time Award for research “whose impact is still felt 15 years after initial publication” and BU’s 2010 United Methodist Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award. Funded by over $44M from government and industry sponsors, his research has yielded 19 PhD theses, 8 issued patents, 2 startups, and hundreds of refereed papers with over 20,000 citations and an H-index of 60.
Bestavros completed his PhD in Computer Science from Harvard University under the late Thomas E. Cheatham, one of the “roots” of the academic genealogy of applied computer scientists.