Recent News & Accomplishments
2023
He aims to make AI more human-like by teaching it to learn and make decisions as humans do.
Machine learning is responsible for some of the most significant advancements in technology that make use of artificial intelligence today—from the burgeoning industry of self-driving cars to virtual personal assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple iPhone’s Siri. However, there is still a long way to go in this field in order to close the divide between humans and machines. Tianyi Zhou, an assistant professor of computer science, is working at the intersection of machine learning and natural language to make AI more human-like by teaching it to learn and make decisions like people do. “... read more
Human body becomes robot playground in project funded by Arts for All Initiative
A tiny robot glides up a dancer’s arm and travels across her torso, connecting an ancient art form to the technology of the future. Instead of passively watching, the audience for the piece—through their smartphones—helps control the movements of the glowing device. “We wanted to use that as a bit of a proxy between us as individuals, and the digital collective on social media,” said Jonathan David Martin, a lecturer in the University of Maryland’s Immersive Media Design major and one of the members of the multidisciplinary team behind DANCExDANCE. The research collaboration was initially... read more
Marina Knittel and Alexander Levine each received the award for the 2023–24 academic year.
The Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland announced its winners of the Larry S. Davis Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2023-24, an annual honor distinguishing the department's two outstanding doctoral dissertations. This year's recipients are Marina Knittel , who plans to graduate this semester and begin a postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Diego in January, and Alexander Levine (Ph.D. '23, computer science), currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. The award highlights exceptional dissertations noted for their technical depth, significance,... read more
The workshop helped to unite researchers from multiple disciplines to explore the future of technology research and foster collaboration.
General-purpose generative models are the massive, big-data-driven systems powering new and exciting artificial intelligence technology. These systems use large language models, complex algorithms and neural networks to produce original text, audio, synthetic data, images and more. However, the impressive performance of these models comes at a cost. They require significant data, computational power, and storage, creating a barrier to entry, especially for smaller research groups. The hype around large pre-trained models (LPMs)—a deep learning model that is trained on large datasets to... read more
UMD alum and Worcester Polytechnic Institute faculty member Nitin Sanket is creating a tiny drone that could help pollinate plants.
This summer’s weather extremes were stark reminders that climate change is not only real, it’s here. Less visible to most of us than smoke-filled skies, water-logged roads and life-threatening heat—but just as important—is the dramatic and ongoing decline of global bee populations. Many crops rely on commercially managed honeybees, wild native bees and other pollinators to reproduce. In fact, one-third of every bite of food we eat comes from plants that need to be pollinated, so pollinator health affects all of us. But almost 35 percent of insect pollinator populations worldwide are at risk... read more
This comprehensive project is committed to advancing cutting-edge technologies in various domains, such as engineering, robotics and cybersecurity.
ArtIAMAS , a pioneering five-year collaborative initiative between researchers from the University of Maryland, the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the US Army Research Lab (ARL), is now entering its third year of the program. This comprehensive project is dedicated to advancing cutting-edge technologies across diverse domains including engineering, robotics, computer science, operations research, modeling and simulation and cybersecurity. These technologies are meticulously designed to operate autonomously while seamlessly complementing human capabilities. The UMD Gamma Lab , led... read more
Many of the leading artificial intelligence companies are already incorporating watermarking tech into their products. Some are simple and easily cropped, like OpenAI’s marking on DALL-E images, but others are more persistent. In August, for instance, Google announced the beta version of SynthID, an imperceptible watermark inserted directly into the pixels of an image. The method avoids degrading or prominently marking the image while allowing AI detection software to authenticate it even after it’s cropped or resized. These “high perturbation” methods of embedding digital watermarks into the... read more
Zhang, an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, incorporates his passion for games into his research approach.
Competing to win—whether it’s a video or board game—requires the player to be strategic and see the bigger picture. They need to understand the other players’ positions and strengths in order to be successful. This is how Kaiqing Zhang —a self-described games enthusiast—approaches his research, which lies at the intersection of machine learning, reinforcement learning, game theory, and control theory. “Specifically, I am interested in problems in machine learning when there are multiple learners interacting with each other, and in building theoretical foundations for it,” says Zhang, an... read more
Since its launch in 2015, the student-led event for coding and computing enthusiasts quickly distinguished itself from typical hackathons.
The Hotel at the University of Maryland, conveniently located across Baltimore Ave. from the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, transformed into a dynamic hub of innovation and creativity on October 21 and 22, 2023, hosting the 9th annual Technica hackathon. This event, which is the world's largest hackathon for underrepresented genders, brought together tech enthusiasts from across the globe to celebrate and showcase their talents. Since Technica’s inception in 2015 as a free, student-run event for anyone interested in coding and computing—even those without prior... read more
The award recognizes and funds innovative projects that push the boundaries of foundational models and their potential applications.
University of Maryland Assistant Professor of Computer Science Furong Huang received the Microsoft Accelerate Foundation Models Research award for her work titled "Building Foundation Models for Efficient Finetuning or Zero-Shot Learning of Sequential Decision-Making." The award recognizes and funds innovative projects that push the boundaries of foundational models and their potential applications. Winners like Huang can receive up to $20,000 in Azure credits, equipping them with powerful tools to further their research endeavors. "I am deeply honored to receive the Microsoft Accelerate... read more