Recent News & Accomplishments
2021
Starting in Fall 2021, the University of Maryland will offer a new undergraduate minor in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS). With automated systems becoming more central to the STEM industries in which engineering and computer science graduates work, robotics has become a “must-know” field. Robotics courses generate long wait lists and a demand for more classes and sections. The new RAS minor will help meet this rising demand. It will be administered by the Maryland Robotics Center (MRC), part of the Institute for Systems Research within the Clark School of Engineering. The MRC currently... read more
Knittel received the ARCS Endowment Fellowship in Computer Science for 2021-22
Algorithms are a part of our daily lives. They’re at work when we search for something online, open our favorite social media app or even look up directions on our phones. But what you might not realize is that these algorithms can be biased. Last fall, Twitter made headlines for how its photo cropping algorithm prioritized white faces over Black ones . In 2019, questions were raised about whether Google’s search algorithm was politically biased against conservatives. Mitigating these types of biases in technology is how University of Maryland computer science Ph.D. student Marina Knittel... read more
Alumna Elizabeth Corderman lives her childhood dream of a career at NASA
When Elizabeth Corderman (B.S. ’94, mathematics and computer science; M.S. ’99, computer science) was 12 years old, her fascination with space launched a big dream. And she was serious about making it happen. “I’ve wanted to work at NASA all my life, and I always had enough sense to know that being an astronaut is a pie in the sky dream like being a movie star or a star athlete or something, obviously people get to do it but it’s very rare,” Corderman explained. “Then it dawned on me that for every astronaut in space, there’s all those people who do all the work on the ground supporting them... read more
The weekly talks will feature experts in artificial intelligence, machine learning and theoretical computer science.
A weekly seminar series focused on fairness and bias in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) virtually kicks-off at the University of Maryland on Monday, March 8. The hour-long talks—Mondays from 11 a.m. to noon—are sponsored by the University of Maryland Center for Machine Learning and technology and financial leader Capital One . The Fairness in AI seminar series will feature experts in AI, ML and theoretical computer science who will identify challenges—and seek input on solutions—to the plethora of questions regarding fairness and bias in software used for everything... read more
Presentations at the Feb. 26 event involved projects based in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and immersive spaces.
Faculty, staff and students from nine departments and six colleges recently came together for a virtual workshop to showcase all-things-immersive at the University of Maryland. Hosted by the university’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program and the Mixed/Augmented/Virtual Reality Innovation Center (MAVRIC), the Feb. 26 workshop was designed to stimulate conversations and open new pathways for increasing collaboration and support of all-things-immersive across the UMD campus. (A full recording of the four-hour workshop is available here .) “It was inspiring to see how researchers from computer... read more
Partnership with Break Through Tech is part of the Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities Initiative
The University of Maryland will build programs to propel more students who identify as women and non-binary into tech education—and ultimately tech careers—thanks to a new partnership with Break Through Tech . The goal is to increase the number of these students graduating with a tech degree at UMD by 12.5 percentage points by 2026, through curriculum innovation, career access and community building. “The University of Maryland is committed to making computing inclusive and accessible for all,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “Break Through Tech will contribute to our efforts with... read more
The funding supports Bhatele’s efforts to use data-driven machine learning models to optimize the efficiency and throughput of extreme-scale parallel systems, and the performance of parallel applications running on them.
A University of Maryland expert in high performance computing (HPC) has received a National Science Foundation award to develop innovative methods for optimizing the performance of parallel applications and runtimes, and the operational efficiency of supercomputers and HPC clusters. Abhinav Bhatele , an assistant professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), is principal investigator of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which is expected to total $550,000 over five years. The funding... read more
The students will design a spacesuit information display within an augmented reality environment that will assist astronauts in conducting spacewalks more effectively.
A team of University of Maryland students has been invited to participate in the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) Artemis Student Challenge. SUITS is a software design challenge that tasks students across the United States with developing spacesuit information displays within augmented reality environments that will assist astronauts in conducting spacewalks more effectively. The challenge tackles key aspects of NASA’s Artemis missions, which will land the first woman and next man on the moon, and provides students the opportunity to work hands on toward... read more
The assistant professor seeks ways to make database software more intuitive for non-data scientists
Leilani Battle loves what she does, and her passion comes through in abundant productivity. The assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland earned her Ph.D. just 3 1/2 years ago, and she has already racked up an impressive number of mentees and published research papers. “I love doing research,” she said, “and really early on in my Ph.D., I learned that I could teach others, especially women and people of color, to have the same or similar skill sets and walk them down that path to the point where they could become accomplished researchers and independent researchers... read more
The new concentration prepares CS undergraduates to work on the frontiers of technology
In December 2020, Mateo Elezi and Maya Fuchs became the first University of Maryland students to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a specialization in machine learning . A new offering from the Department of Computer Science, the specialization prepares students to work and study at the frontiers of technology where machine learning leads the way. In machine learning, computers use algorithms and statistical models to identify patterns in data that enable them to make decisions and perform tasks such as guiding self-driving cars, predicting our media preferences, diagnosing... read more