Recent News & Accomplishments
2023
Using Emerging Tech, Students Create Innovative Art, Interactive Games in Incubator Program
Deep in the maze-like white corridors of the A.V. Williams Building, gentle tides wash up driftwood and crab shells; oppressed workers rise up against a surveillance state; and aspiring pop stars perfect their recordings in a studio. “This is pretty sick,” said Marilyn Ortega ’24—in the best sense of the word, of course—as she offered feedback to peers presenting their art installations and interactive games. They weren’t being created for a class or for an internship but for the Immersive Media Design (IMD) program’s New Works Incubator, an eight-week summer program that gives any University... read more
MIDA aims to change technology design research and practice so that it involves disability communities as equal partners from the beginning of the design process, and accessibility is proactively built-in.
Two faculty members of the Department of Computer Science, assistant professors Huaishu Peng and Abhinav Shrivastava , are a part of the new Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA) that combines the expertise and passion of researchers, designers, developers and educators from multiple disciplines at the University of Maryland (UMD) with a united goal of making digital technologies accessible for all. The world of digital technologies and content (including software apps, websites, and digital documents) is often designed without considering the needs of people with disabilities... read more
Simply paraphrasing LLM-generated content can often deceive detection techniques used by leading market technologies in the field
To many, AI detection tools offer a glimpse of hope against the erosion of truth. They promise to identify the artifice, preserving the sanctity of human creativity. However, computer scientists at the University of Maryland put this claim to the test in their quest for veracity. The results? A sobering wake-up call for the industry. Soheil Feizi , an associate professor of computer science at UMD, revealed the vulnerabilities of these AI detectors, stating they are unreliable in practical scenarios. Simply paraphrasing LLM-generated content can often deceive detection techniques used by... read more
The funding supports efforts to provide a comprehensive and fundamental understanding of provable robustness in dynamic and adaptive learning setups, leading to practically useful methods with theoretical guarantees
Soheil Feizi , an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, has been awarded $360,000 by the Army Research Office (ARO) to develop provable methods that can improve the robustness of dynamic AI systems. The funding comes from ARO’s prestigious Early Career Program Award, which incentivizes early career university faculty to pursue fundamental research. Feizi’s proposal, “ Provably Robust Dynamic Systems,” was funded for three years. Its goal is to provide a comprehensive and fundamental understanding of provable robustness in dynamic and adaptive... read more
Liu's work explores new abstractions, techniques and tools to democratize the creation of interactive data visualizations
Leo Zhicheng Liu , an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, has been honored with a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. Liu received the award for his research proposal titled " Manipulable Semantic Components in Data Visualization Design ." In an era when data visualizations have become ubiquitous and serve as powerful tools for data analysis and storytelling, Liu's work explores new ways to enable a broad range of users to create expressive data visualizations. The NSF recognition further... read more
Two-year study found that 27% of the phones they successfully bid on contained personal data
Law enforcement agencies nationwide regularly sell items that are seized in criminal investigations or are unclaimed from lost-and-found inventories. Many of these items—vehicles, jewelry, watches and electronic devices like cellphones—end up at online auction houses. People looking for a bargain can bid on cellphones in bulk, snatching up dozens at rock bottom prices for parts or other uses. This ultimately provides revenue for the police agencies, making for a good deal for everyone involved. Or is it? A recent study by University of Maryland security experts found that many of the phones... read more
Since becoming dean in 2018, he has fostered excellence in the teaching, scholarship and service activities in the college
Amitabh Varshney, a prominent computer scientist who has served as dean of the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) since 2018, has been appointed to a second five-year term as dean, effective July 1, 2023. In a message to the UMD community, Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice praised Varshney for his many accomplishments during his first term following a comprehensive review. “Dean Varshney’s review indicated a great level of satisfaction in his leadership and ability to foster excellence in the teaching, scholarship, and... read more
The researchers received a 2023 Core77 Design Award for their mix of artistry and functionality in circuit designs
University of Maryland computer scientists received a 2023 Core77 Design Award in the Student Notable Tools category for Fibercuit, a suite of techniques to fabricate high-resolution flexible circuits suitable for rapid prototyping. The Core77 Design Awards annually celebrate the richness of the design profession as well as the insight and perseverance of its practitioners. UMD computer science Ph.D. student Zeyu Yan and Assistant Professor Huaishu Peng focused on developing aesthetically pleasing and flexible custom circuit designs. The designs range from small flexible circuits to larger... read more
Thai Cao’s Mindgrasp startup turns dense lectures into digestible notes for busy college students
Several years ago, a thought occurred to University of Maryland computer science major Thai Cao: What if artificial intelligence (AI) could help students learn faster and more efficiently? Though AI was still a relatively untapped market at that time, Cao sensed that it could revolutionize the college experience—and out of this idea, Mindgrasp was born. Founded and led by Cao, the startup aims to make studying easier for students of all backgrounds, strengths and learning styles. Mindgrasp subscribers upload lecture videos, textbook chapters and presentation slides, and the AI model spits out... read more
A recent crop of AI systems claiming to detect AI-generated text perform poorly—and it doesn’t take much to get past them
We’ve known for some time that tools meant to detect AI-written text don’t always work the way they’re supposed to. Earlier this year, OpenAI unveiled a tool designed to detect text produced by ChatGPT, admitting that it flagged only 26% of AI-written text as “likely AI-written.” OpenAI pointed MIT Technology Review towards a section on its website for educator considerations, which warns that tools designed to detect AI-generated content are “far from foolproof.” However, such failures haven’t stopped companies from rushing out products that promise to do the job, says Tom Goldstein , Volpi-... read more