September 24, 2010 - 8:07am
Kyle d'Oliveira wants to design video games.
But his dream job is on hold while he pursues a master's degree in Computer Science, and possibly a doctorate.
“I want to keep learning,” says d'Oliveira, a recent graduate of Vancouver Island University with a Bachelor of Science, Major in Computing Science (minor in Math).
d'Oliveria has a big reason to keep learning. He won a $17,500 Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which covers part of his tuition for the master's program at the University of BC.
“All of us in the Computing Science department are proud of Kyle's achievement,” says VIU professor Gara Pruesse. “He's an extremely talented computer scientist and I have no doubt he will excel in his future career.”
Pruesse supervised d'oliveira while he completed a major undergraduate research project in his fourth year at VIU. His studies focused on the area of computer science called algorithms and complexity.
“Algorithms are step-by-step methods to solve a problem,” says Pruesse. “When the method gets translated into a computer language, the result is a program that can take any instance of the problem and output the solution.”
d'Oliveira's research examines a class of problems called the ‘Grant-Agency Conference problem'. He proves for the first time that this problem is extremely complex but under specific circumstances the problem can be solved quickly by computers.
“Kyle presents several new algorithms that efficiently solve the ‘Grant-Agency Conference problem under certain constraints,” said Pruesse. “This research can be applied to resource allocation applications.”
Computer Science is a subject that d'Oliveria has always found intriguing. “I'm a logical person and it is easy for me to see how it works,” he said. “Both computer science and math can be very abstract and not very applicable to the everyday world, but the skills gained from these classes are very much geared towards solving problems.
“So although I won't find many opportunities to intercept an encrypted message and try to break it, I will be able to come across a situation that I know little about, and use the clues available to solve the situation.
d'Oliveira hopes to use his skills to design video games, a dream he's had since he was a child. “I hope that I can be one of those people who achieved what they wanted as a kid. Now that I have a bachelor's degree I know I can do that job, however, more importantly, for now I want to continue learning.
“I'll be working on my master's over the next two years, and depending on any research grants or fellowships I get, possibly jump into a doctorate.”
d'Oliveria appreciates VIU even more now that he's in graduate school. “The best part of attending VIU was the professors. They knew me by my first name, and they were more than willing to spend some of their free time helping myself and other students.”
Working on the senior research project was another valuable experience. “Gara (Pruesse) was fantastic as a supervisor. The experience has solidified my desire to work in the theoretical side of computer science.”
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