Recent News & Accomplishments
2022
The University of Maryland has joined 83 other academic institutions in a new initiative to increase the nation’s capabilities in cybersecurity education and workforce development. The Academic Engagement Network— announced by the U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) on January 6, 2022—supports and enhances CYBERCOM’s forward-looking efforts involving the U.S. cyber workforce, applied cyber research, applied analytics and other strategic issues. The network consists of 69 universities, 13 community colleges, nine minority serving institutions, four military service academies, and four military war... read more
Jack and Rita G. Minker Professor Mohammad Taghi Hajiaghayi has been selected as the new Editor-in-Chief of Algorithmica , a Springer-Nature journal. Algorithmica is the oldest existing international journal dedicated to algorithms. The journal publishes theoretical papers on algorithms that address problems arising in practical areas, and experimental papers of general appeal for practical importance. In addition to the regular theoretical and experimental papers on Algorithms, the journal features two special sections: Application Experience which focuses on publishing findings obtained... read more
He was specifically recognized for his contributions to cryptographic protocol design and cryptography education.
University of Maryland Computer Science Professor Jonathan Katz is being honored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his wide-ranging and significant contributions to the fields of cryptography and information security. Katz is among 71 researchers worldwide named ACM Fellows for 2021 —an honor reserved for the organization’s top 1% of its membership each year. This latest cohort of Fellows represents universities, corporations and research centers in Belgium, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy and the United States. In making the announcement, ACM President... read more
She specializes in affective computing—the study and development of intelligent systems that can understand, interpret and respond to human emotions and behavior.
A University of Maryland doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science has been awarded funding from Adobe Research to continue her work in improving deep learning algorithms that can interpret human emotions. Trisha Mittal , a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate advised by Distinguished University Professor Dinesh Manocha , is one on only 10 graduate students worldwide to be named a 2022 Adobe Research Fellow. The prestigious program recognizes outstanding graduate students conducting exceptional research in areas of computer science that are important to Adobe. Each recipient receives a $... read more
Senior Naveen Raman was recently named 2022 Churchill Scholar. The scholarship offers full funding to pursue a one-year master’s degree at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom
This article is republished from CMNS Raman, a computer science and mathematics double major, began working with UMD computer science faculty members in 2018. Since then, he has authored or co-authored seven conference papers on topics at the intersection of computer science, economics and social good. The Churchill Scholarship will allow Raman to work with Jon Crowcroft, the Marconi Professor of Communications Systems in the University of Cambridge Computer Lab, on his M.Phil. in computer science. He plans to focus on the fairness of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)... read more
Graduate student Nitin Sanket was recently announced as the winner of the Drones 2021 PhD Thesis Award. The award is intended to be granted to a Ph.D. student who has produced a highly anticipated academic thesis that shows great potential. Sanket’s dissertation, “ Active Vision Based Embodied-AI Design for Nano-UAV Autonomy ,” introduces concepts used to develop a novel framework for algorithmic sensorimotor design of multirotor vehicles. Sanket’s research focuses on four methods that achieve activeness on an aerial robot. “I am honored to receive the award and excited to see all the doors a... read more
Researchers from the University of Maryland recently received a best paper award for their work in developing an algorithm that helps combat adversarial attacks on machine learning models involving real-time sequential decision-making systems. “Who is the Strongest Enemy? Towards Optimal and Efficient Evasion Attacks in Deep RL ,” explores how to tackle evasion attacks in reinforcement learning (RL), wherein machine learning models are trained to make a sequence of decisions. This type of adversarial attack—where data is (imperceptibly) perturbed to evade detection or to be classified as... read more
2021
The program honors the university’s most successful seniors, who each recognize a UMD faculty member and high school teacher for contributing to their education.
Senior computer science and mathematics double major Naveen Raman was named a University of Maryland Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar. The Merrill Presidential Scholars Program honors the university’s most successful seniors, who each recognize a UMD faculty member and high school teacher who helped guide, inspire, coach, tutor and challenge them in both big and small ways. “Programs like these are critical to our students’ success,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “They celebrate invaluable mentorship that will have a long lasting impact on the lives of our students, while on campus... read more
Junior Amy Hein and master’s student George Klees were selected to attend RSA Conference 2022.
Two computer science students from the University of Maryland were selected to participate in the Security Scholar Program at the RSA Conference (RSAC) 2022: Junior Amy Hein and master’s student George Klees (B.S. ’21, computer science). Now entering its sixth year, the RSAC Security Scholar Program nurtures the professional growth of 50 select undergraduate, master's and Ph.D. students by providing them with the opportunity to share their academic work with attendees; network with industry thought leaders; and gain insights on global trends, groundbreaking solutions and next-era strategies... read more
The paper argues that topic model developers should use a combination of artificial intelligence tools coupled with human input.
Topic modeling—a machine learning technique originally developed as a text mining tool for computer scientists—is now widely used by historians, journalists and analysts to make sense of large collections of text. These probabilistic models produce various lists of related words, and each list corresponds to a subject in the collection. But despite their popularity, there are flaws in the way that topic models are evaluated for their accuracy, which ultimately affects how useful they are to the people that rely on them. In a paper being presented this week at the Conference on Neural... read more