Prof. Natasha Devroye

Information theory can characterize one-way, non-interactive communication, where one source sends a message to one destination, very well. When the communication is interactive, as in (1) channels with feedback, or (2) two-way channels where two users exchange messages over a shared channel, much less is understood. We outline, in an interactive fashion, what is understood about interactive communications from an information theoretic perspective, and why they are so challenging to characterize. Many open problems and connections to related fields will be presented.

Biography:

Natasha Devroye is  a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), which she joined in January 2009. From July 2007 until July 2008 she was a Lecturer at Harvard University. Dr. Devroye obtained her Ph.D in Engineering Sciences from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University in 2007,  and an Honors B. Eng in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 2001.   Dr. Devroye was a recipient of an NSF CAREER award, and was named UIC's Researcher of the Year in the ``Rising Star'’ category.  She has been an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications, the  IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking and the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. She co-chaired the Women in Information Theory Society from 2015-2018 and is an Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2019-2021. Her research focuses on multi-user information theory and applications to hardware security, and cognitive, software-defined radio, radar, relay, zero-error, and two-way communication networks.