Recent News & Accomplishments
2022
The department is thrilled to announce our newest professors of computer science who are slated to join us in 2023. The new faculty will contribute to the department's research in the areas of Cybersecurity, AI and Machine Learning, Immersive Media Design, and Quantum Computing. Yizheng Chen Chen’s research is at the intersection of AI and Cybersecurity. She is interested in designing robust AI techniques to solve security problems, such as detecting malware, vulnerability, attacks and fraud. Chen holds a PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining UMD, she... read more
Michelle Mazurek, an associate professor of computer science and director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center , has been honored by Carnegie Mellon University’s Security and Privacy Institute ( CyLab ) with its 2022 CyLab Distinguished Alumni Award. The award recognizes CyLab alumni from any CMU department that have had impactful achievements in security and/or privacy. After receiving notification of the award, Mazurek says that she was flattered. “I wasn’t expecting this, and it means so much because of my immense respect for everyone at CyLab,” she says. Mazurek was nominated for the... read more
Computer science alum Vinay Shet is on a mission driven by computer vision
Imagine a typical construction site—bulldozers, excavators and other heavy equipment all buzzing with activity. But when you take a closer look, you realize something’s missing—none of these mega-machines have anyone in the operator’s seat. They’re all being controlled remotely by a single human operator miles away from the job site. It’s not science fiction. It’s Teleo , a groundbreaking startup co-founded by University of Maryland alum Vinay Shet (M.S. ’03, Ph.D. ’07, computer science). “We are on a mission to revolutionize how we build the world,” Shet explained. “We are converting our... read more
Iribe Initiative’s Kate Atchison Wins Board of Regents Staff Award
Throughout her career, Kate Atchison has made a commitment to making a difference. The thread of community service is woven throughout her life—and her work. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is serve my community and give back. When I was growing up, I was always the one taking on leadership roles at church and finding ways to volunteer in my community,” Atchison said. “That mentality has really guided my career decisions, and that’s why I’m here in this role at the University of Maryland.” As associate director of the Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) and the... read more
Michael Hicks , a professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies , was recently recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his longtime contributions to the programming languages community. Hicks received the Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN) Distinguished Service Award at the 43 rd ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation ( PLDI 2022 ) , held from June 13–17 in San Diego. The award, which includes a prize of $2,500, recognizes exemplary service... read more
The award—the highest honor given by the SMA—recognizes stellar contributions of a technical and leadership nature made to solid, geometric or physical modeling and its applications.
Hanan Samet (left in photo), a Distinguished University Professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), has just been honored by the Solid Modeling Association (SMA) with its prestigious Bézier Award. The award—the highest honor given by the SMA—is named for the late Pierre Bézier, a French engineer and one of the founders of the fields of solid, geometric and physical modeling. It is given to an individual or group for stellar contributions of a technical and leadership nature made to solid, geometric or... read more
Following the genome revolution, bioinformatics has rapidly risen as an essential field of research. To increase our understanding of health and disease, there is a critical need for scientists with interdisciplinary training to process and analyze large-scale genomic datasets. The Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) is working to fill those ranks. This summer, a group of 10 undergraduate students from across the country are collaborating with University of Maryland faculty and graduate students to research real world problems in metagenomics, machine learning, single-... read more
The researchers—a mix of faculty, postdocs and students—are presenting 18 papers and are featured in 18 workshops.
University of Maryland researchers focused on machine learning are well represented this week at the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning ( ICML 2022 ) being held from July 17–23 in Baltimore. The UMD researchers—a mix of faculty, postdocs and students—are presenting 18 papers and are featured in 18 workshops. Their research covers a wide range of topics such as measuring the robustness of neural networks, improving the accuracy of classifying images in uncommon settings, and leveraging human assistance to help AI agents cope with unfamiliar situations. Many of the participating... read more
Researchers from the Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP) Lab are presenting five papers and contributing to several workshops at a top-tier conference for natural language processing this week in Seattle. The 2022 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) is being held July 10–15 and streamed online in a hybrid format. CLIP faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and alumni are all represented in the conference program. Marine Carpuat , an associate professor of computer science and program co... read more
Anyone’s digital safety, security or privacy can be attacked, yet researchers refer to at-risk users as those who are more likely to be attacked or suffer disproportionate harm. For example, LGBTQIA+ individuals face an elevated risk of harassment on social media, and older adults are more likely to fall for phishing scams. A growing body of research explores at-risk users whose digital safety needs go unmet because systems are typically designed for the average user. It’s common to recommend that extra consideration be taken into account for vulnerable users during the technology creation... read more