Recent News & Accomplishments
2018
He will serve in this position until 2022
Professor Mihai Pop has been named director of UMIACS ( University of Maryland Institute for Computer Studies). He will serve in this capacity until 2022. CMNS has posted the following announcement: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/mihai-pop-named-director-universit... , printed below for your convenience : Mihai Pop, a professor of computer science noted for his scientific research and his advocacy for greater equality in academia, has been appointed director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), effective Nov. 25, 2018 through June 30, 2022... read more
Vanderbrug was an early graduate of the Ph.D. program in Computer Science
The Department of Computer Science is sad to report that Alumni Hall of Fame member Dr. Gordon James Vanderbrug passed away on Friday, November 9th 2018. After earning a B.S. in mathematics from Calvin College and a M.S. in mathematics from Wayne State University, Dr. Gordon enrolled in the Department of Computer Science here in 1969. He was advised by Professor Azriel Rosenfeld and partially by Emeritus Professor Jack Minker. Dr. Vanderbrug worked in areas including machine vision systems, robotics, and software tools. In 1996 he co-founded iBasis, a wholesale carrier that pioneered the use... read more
Going to Grace Hopper and Mentoring Students helped her on her path
For Veteran's Day, CMNS has published feature story on senior computer science major Kathryn Mann. Mann, a former member of the U.S. Navy who specialized in national security, attributes her experiences at Grace Hopper Celeberation--generously funded by Brendan Iribe and BRAID through the Maryland Center for Women in Computing as well as her work mentoring other students through that same center as reasons why she remained committed to finishing her a computer science major. Read more about Mann and her experiences at the University here: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/meet-kathryn-... read more
For his contributions to theoretical computer science, discrete probability, network science and applications and for service to the profession, Professor Aravind Srinivasan has been named to the 2019 Class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). He is one of sixty-five mathematical scientists from around the world who have been named to this prestigious group. "This year's class of AMS Fellows has been selected from a large and deep pool of superb candidates. It is my pleasure and honor as AMS President to congratulate the new Fellows for their diverse contributions to the... read more
Vazou part of first class of Basili Postdoctoral Fellows
Assistant Professor David Van Horn and Dr. Niki Vazou , a Basili Postdoctoral fellowship alumna, have won a distinguished paper award at OOPSLA 2018. Their paper, entitled “ Gradual Liquid Type Inference ” included Professor Éric Tanter of University of Chile and Inria Paris. The groups' ultimate goal has been to build the next generation of verification-integrated programming languages that empower programmers to make strong correctness claims and have them automatically validated by the language. Thanks to efforts by Vazou, and her collaborators, these expressive verification-integrated... read more
She will serve as president of the organization in 2020
Affiliate Professor of Computer Science Leila De Floriani has been elected the 2019 IEEE-CS President-Elect. De Floriani will be the president of the organization for one year starting in January in 2020. De Floriani is a celebrated computer scientist known for her work in data visualization, geospatial data representation and processing, computer graphics, geometric modeling, and shape analysis and understanding. She is an IEEE Fellow, a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), and she is a Pioneer of the Solid Modeling Association. Since 2017, she has been a... read more
Associate Professor Jordan Boyd-Graber will be appearing on Jeopardy as a contestant on September 26th 2018. Earlier this month, he was kind enough to be a guest on the Department's podcast to discuss his appearance on the show as well as his research on QANTA , a project that focuses on using question answering as a platform for research in machine learning and natural language processing. In this podcast, he is interviewed with Eric Wallace, a senior Computer Engineering Major from the A. James Clark School of Engineering. On December 15, Boyd-Graber will be hosting a competition here at... read more
The recipients of the Larry S. Davis Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2018 are Garrett Katz and Xiao Wang. The awards recognize the two best dissertations in the department each year. Garrett Katz' dissertation is titled, "A Cognitive Robotic Imitation Learning System Based on Cause-Effect Reasoning." Professor Jim Reggia served as his advisor. After completing postdoctoral research with Reggia, Katz has begun his first year as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Syracuse University. Xiao Wang's dissertation is titled " A New Paradigm For Practical Maliciously Secure Multi-party... read more
The Perception and Robotics Group Lab’s (PRG) work on drones able to pass through small gaps in walls—thanks to vision inspired by insects—was featured as a project on IEEE Spectrum media on September 11th 2018. Gapflyt is led by Professor Yiannis Aloinmonos and Dr. Cornelia Fermüller along with their graduate students Nitin J. Sanket, Chahat Deep Singh, and Kanishka Ganguly. Soon after being highlighted on IEEE, the group’s work has become the subject of over twenty-five web publications from around the world. Here is a video of their work: read more
The Department of Computer Science is pleased to welcome two new Basili Fellows for Fall 2018: Robert Rand and Leonidas Lampropoulos. Leonidas Lapropoulous Robert Rand Robert Rand is finishing his Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania with Professor Steve Zdancewic. Rand's thesis explores the intersection of programming languages, formal verification and quantum computing. Together with Jennifer Paykin, he was a lead developer of QWIRE , a Programming language and verification tool for quantum programs. Prior to joining UPenn, he received his undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University... read more