Recent News & Accomplishments
2020
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 will be held online from May 31st to August 31st
Robotic and automation experts from across the globe will convene virtually for technical paper presentations and online discussions for the International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2020 conference which will be held from May 31st to August 31st. ICRA is the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s flagship conference and the premier international forum for robotics researchers to present and discuss their work. UMD Computer Science researchers, some of who are also faculty members of Maryland Robotics Center (MRC), will present 14 papers at the conference. UMD MRC faculty and... read more
Ben Shneiderman was profiled in a New York Times article on May 22. “A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans” written by John Markoff
Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Ben Shneiderman encourages designers to focus on the reliability, safety and trustworthiness of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) as compared to the autonomous Artificial Intelligence In a recent article “ A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans ” in the New York Times on May 22, 2020, by John Markoff, Shniederman expressed his concerns over “blindly automating tasks with computers.” “I think John Markoff’s article is very good and presents my position well,” he said. “However, Markoff portrays me as a critic of AI, but I’m... read more
Assistant Director of Graduate Education, Tom Hurst has been selected to receive the Staff Service Award for Spring 2020 in recognition of his exceptional administration of the graduate program. “We have one of the largest graduate programs on campus with over 300 students,”said Professor Ramani Duraiswami , Associate Chair for Graduate Program. “Tom is committed to the job, and does it without reservations, ensuring he knows every student in the program.” “He has innovated in how our visit day is arranged, in helping launch the research day, and in improving grad student social life,” he... read more
Symposium will be held virtually
On Thursday, May 28th, 2020, the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at the University of Maryland will be celebrating its 37 years of transforming the experience people have with new technologies by hosting a Virtual HCIL Symposium. Part of that symposium features the Human-Centered AI: Reliable, Safe & Trustworthy (HCAI) workshop , which will highlight HCIL members and colleagues’ dedicated and innovative human-centered AI technologies research. From understanding user needs, to developing and evaluating those technologies, the lab’s faculty, staff, and students have been leading the... read more
Computer Science sophomore Mia Bennett has been selected to receive the prestigious U.S. Department of State's Foreign Affairs Information Technology Fellowship (FAIT). Following a highly competitive application process, Bennett is one of only 15 students nationwide to be selected for this esteemed fellowship. Born in Japan, Benett moved to the US around the age of 7. She discovered her curiosity for different cultures and a passion to travel at a very young age. A graduate from James H. Blake High School Benett's first encounter with computer science began in high school with an elective... read more
Assistant Professor Dave Levin receives the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for a project titled "Automatically Learning to Evade Internet Censorship". The funded project focuses on automating the discovery of censorship evasion techniques, developing new ways to measure censorship, and scaling up undergrad research. “The Internet provides an open platform for communication, diplomacy, and education. But this is challenged by censorship of Internet traffic, details of which are typically not made publicly known”, said Levin. “For decades, security researchers have engaged in... read more
Computer Science senior Krithika Ramanathan has been awarded the 2020-21 Fulbright Scholarship. She will serve as an English Teaching Assistant in Sri Lanka. “ My interest in education began slightly before joining UMD”, said Ramanathan. “I volunteered at a school in India in developing curriculum and leading classroom activities to help with underserved communities”. A National Merit and AP Scholar from Thomas S. Wootton High School, Ramaanthan’s interests have always been at the intersection of Computing and Education. Ramanathan began her passion for teaching as a summer outreach... read more
Paul Chrisman Iribe Professor Dinesh Manocha receives the 2020 Pierre Bézier Award in recognition of his technically significant and lasting contributions in Solid, Geometric and Physical Modeling and their Applications. In addition to being a professor in Computer science, Manocha holds joint appointments in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and UMIACS. He is also affiliated with Maryland Robotics Center and Institute for Systems Research . The Pierre Bézier award, modeled after the Association of Computing Machinery’s A.M. Turing Award was established in 2007 in the... read more
Varun Suryan, a doctoral student advised by Assistant Professor Pratap Tokekar wins the University of Maryland’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition for 2020. An undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, India, and Master in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech, Suryan’s research focuses on multi-arm bandits and their application to solving informative path planning problems in robotics. “My main motivation in entering this competition was to challenge myself to break down my research in front of a general audience in less than three minutes,”... read more
Alex Hanson , a first-year doctoral student advised by Assistant Professor Abhinav Shrivastava , recently won the Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship for 2020. Hanson’s current research focuses on selecting data to make neural network training faster and produce more accurate models. In particular, his work aims to capture meaningful representations of high-level concepts from data via machine learning and use geometric methods to interpret and improve those representations. “I am hoping to be able to distinguish what a neural network... read more