UCI to study large-scale computer networks

If your Facebook page – or “node” – disappeared, would your whole social network come crashing to a halt? A five-year, $5.4 million award to UC Irvine researchers – led by computer science professor Padhraic Smyth (pictured) – will help you find out. The grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research will allow a multidisciplinary research team to analyze networks of data on a significantly larger scale than ever before. The goal is to help scientists understand how networks the size of Facebook and LinkedIn are formed and how they evolve over time.