Parallel Algorithms

Course Schedule

CSC 726
Fall 2026

Syllabus


PRAM Algorithms

8/24 Course introduction and overview
8/26 PRAM model and matrix multiplication
Read Sections 27.1-27.2 of Intro to Algorithms (CLRS)
Watch Multithreaded Programming (Leiserson)

8/31 Mergesort
Read Section 27.3 of Intro to Algorithms (CLRS)
Watch Multithreaded Algorithms (Leiserson)
9/2 Dynamic programming
Watch DP1: LCS and DP2: Knapsack videos from Intro to Graduate Algorithms (Vigoda)

Data Locality

9/7 No class: Labor Day
9/9 Cache models and matrix multiplication
Read Cache-Aware Analysis of Algorithms (Lee)
Watch Ideal Cache Model (Vuduc)
Assignment 1 due

9/14 Cache-oblivious algorithms
Read Sections 1-2 of Cache-Oblivious Dynamic Programming for Bioinformatics
Watch Cache-Oblivious Matrix Multiply (Vuduc)

OpenMP

9/16 Introduction to OpenMP
Review slides from OpenMP Basics (Kale)

9/21 DEAC cluster
Peruse the DEAC User Wiki
9/23 OpenMP in-class programming exercise
Assignment 2 due

LPRAM

9/28 LPRAM model and matrix multiplication
Read Sections 1-2 of Communication Complexity of PRAMs
9/30 Communication lower bounds for matrix multiplication
Read Tight Memory-Independent Parallel Matrix Multiplication Communication Lower Bounds

BSP

10/5 BSP model and algorithms
Read Sections 1-3 of Scalable Computing
10/7 BSP sorting
Assignment 3 due

10/12 No class: Fall break
10/14 In-class Midterm

MPI Model

10/19 SUMMA
Read SUMMA: scalable universal matrix multiplication algorithm
10/21 MPI collectives
Read Collective communication: theory, practice, and experience

MPI Programming

10/26 MPI collectives (continued)
10/28 Intro to MPI programming
Project proposals due

11/2 Intro to MPI programming (continued)
11/4 MPI in-class programming exercise

11/9 MPI in-class programming exercise
11/11 MPI in-class programming exercise

Scientific Computing Applications

11/16 Sparse matrix-dense vector multiplication (SpMV)
View slides from Parallel Scientific Computing: Section 4.1, Section 4.2, Section 4.3
11/18 SpMV continued
Project progress report due

11/23 Householder QR
11/25 No class: Thanksgiving break

Project Presentations

11/30 TBD
12/2 TBD

12/7 TBD

12/14 Final Exam (2pm)