Christine Bassem

Anchor Point Assistant Professor in Computer Science

My broad research interests are in mechanism and algorithm design for dynamic distributed systems, including crowd networks, mobile ad-hoc networks, and transport networks.  See my personal website: https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cbassem/

Current and upcoming courses

  • What is the “cloud”? What is a distributed system? This course is for students interested in understanding the fundamental concepts and algorithms underlying existing distributed systems. By the end of this course, students will have the basic knowledge needed to work with and build distributed systems, such as peer-to-peer systems and cloud computing systems. Topics include MapReduce, Spark, communication models, synchronization, distributed file systems, coordination algorithms, consensus algorithms, fault-tolerance, and security.. Enrollment in this course is by permission of the instructor only. Students who are interested in taking this course should fill out this Google Form.
  • An introduction to the design and analysis of fundamental algorithms. General techniques covered: divide-and-conquer algorithms, dynamic programming, greediness, probabilistic algorithms. Topics include: sorting, searching, graph algorithms, compression, cryptography, computational geometry, and NP-completeness.
  • An introduction to the design and analysis of fundamental algorithms. General techniques covered: divide-and-conquer algorithms, dynamic programming, greediness, probabilistic algorithms. Topics include: sorting, searching, graph algorithms, compression, cryptography, computational geometry, and NP-completeness.