Recent News & Accomplishments
2024
Her work focuses on developing scientific methods to enhance LLMs' accuracy, fairness and cultural adaptability in reasoning about everyday situations.
Rachel Rudinger , an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award to further her work on “ Robust, Fair, and Culturally Aware Commonsense Reasoning in Natural Language .” Her research focuses on developing models for knowledge acquisition and commonsense reasoning. Rudinger is the principal investigator of the award, which is expected to total just under $600,000 over the next five years. “I’ve always had a deep admiration for the National Science Foundation and... read more
Speakers at the event shared that the revolutionary technology must embrace values and variety of perspectives.
The University of Maryland on Thursday celebrated the launch of an institute to engage every academic unit across campus in creating the future of artificial intelligence, one in which the burgeoning technology works for the good of all. Announced last month, the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM) will be a collaborative hub for AI to support faculty research, offer innovative and experiential learning opportunities to boost the AI workforce and inspire new generations of leaders, and forge partnerships to focus on responsible and ethical AI throughout... read more
UMD researchers employ reverse vaccinology to combat drug-resistant malaria.
While cases of malaria have been decreasing in some parts of the world thanks to drug-based therapies, efforts to eradicate this life-threatening disease have recently stalled, due in part to the parasites that transmit malaria becoming resistant to current therapeutics. Computational biologists from the University of Maryland have partnered with researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine to address this challenge. Using a novel approach called reverse vaccinology, which employs powerful bioinformatic tools and reverse pharmacology practices, the researchers are examining... read more
The student organization supports members by nurturing talent and bridging the gap to professional opportunities in tech.
App Dev , a Department of Computer Science student organization, was honored at the 12th Annual Do Good Challenge Finals , where it received a $5,000 first-place Do Good Challenge Award and the $2,500 Finalist Audience Choice Award. Six purpose-driven student teams competed for a share of more than $20,000 in the challenge. The event took place at the Kay Theater of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, where hundreds of students, staff, faculty and community members gathered. Two club administrative members, Matthewos Gashaw and Samai Patel, were present during the award ceremony and... read more
The key to their technology is a framework that compares the randomness of text to a measure of background perplexity produced by an LLM.
With the exponential growth of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT showing no signs of abatement, distinguishing human from machine-generated content remains a concern in academia, journalism and many other segments of our society. University of Maryland researchers have been working on a solution, developing an innovative software platform called Binoculars that can detect text generated by LLMs at an almost 90% success rate. The technology was named the winner of the information sciences category in this year’s UMD Invention of the Year competition at the annual Innovate Maryland... read more
AWS developer Obayomi harnesses generative AI tools to get answers and solve problems, while helping other engineers learn and build better services.
I’ve been interested in software engineering ever since I got hooked on video games as a kid. I studied computer science and graduated from the University of Maryland in 2011, which required a lot of hard work. I didn’t really get it at first—until I built my first app and saw how much creativity was involved in the process. I went on to work for more than 10 years as a software engineer, initially coding for government contractors and later running cloud infrastructure and data analytics platforms for technology companies. These days, I work at Amazon Web Services as what’s known as a... read more
Levine was recognized for his 2023 dissertation, which introduces innovative methods for ensuring the robustness of machine learning models.
University of Maryland Department of Computer Science alum Alexander Levine (Ph.D. '23, computer science) has been awarded the Charles A. Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award for his dissertation titled "Scalable Methods for Robust Machine Learning." Levine, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin , focused on developing machine learning models that maintain accuracy amid distortions. The award ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14, at the Stamp Student Union. The award is for the dissertation he completed in 2023. The Charles A. Caramello Distinguished... read more
Shrestha's app analyzes users' musical performances using a simple webcam, providing detailed feedback on their stance, chin position and other aspects to enhance their skills.
On the ground floor of one of the new computer buildings at the University of Maryland, Anna Kelleher played her centuries-old violin while a program running on a laptop in front of her told her to do things such as raise her chin or widen her stance. These were common mistakes that Kelleher knows not to do. After all, she’s a graduate student studying violin performance. But she also teaches violin to others, and the program she was demonstrating might someday help those she teaches to play even better. Believers in artificial intelligence say the program will radically transform our lives... read more
Daumé was recognized for his leadership and extensive work in artificial intelligence.
University of Maryland Department of Computer Science Professor Hal Daumé III was honored for his leadership in artificial intelligence at the 2024 Maryland Research Excellence Celebration on April 16 at The Hotel. The event celebrated the distinct and notable accomplishments of UMD researchers and recognized the impact and outcomes of their work. UMD recognized the achievements of more than 200 faculty members and researchers at the event. The celebration featured remarks from Gregory F. Ball , Vice President for Research, who emphasized the societal impact of the university's scholarly... read more
Over 2,000 hackers gathered at UMD for 36 hours of exploring, learning and creating with world-class mentors.
The University of Maryland celebrated the 10th anniversary of Bitcamp , one of the East Coast's largest collegiate hackathons, from April 19-21, 2024, at the Reckord Armory . High school students and undergraduates participated in the 36-hour event, developing innovative software and hardware solutions. The annual hackathon draws ambitious student programmers, designers and innovators from across the region. More than 2,000 students registered, including 200 participants from outside UMD. This year, Bitcamp offered a variety of tracks aligned with current technology trends, including machine... read more