Recent News & Accomplishments
2021
Presentations at the Feb. 26 event involved projects based in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and immersive spaces.
Faculty, staff and students from nine departments and six colleges recently came together for a virtual workshop to showcase all-things-immersive at the University of Maryland. Hosted by the university’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program and the Mixed/Augmented/Virtual Reality Innovation Center (MAVRIC), the Feb. 26 workshop was designed to stimulate conversations and open new pathways for increasing collaboration and support of all-things-immersive across the UMD campus. (A full recording of the four-hour workshop is available here .) “It was inspiring to see how researchers from computer... read more
Partnership with Break Through Tech is part of the Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities Initiative
The University of Maryland will build programs to propel more students who identify as women and non-binary into tech education—and ultimately tech careers—thanks to a new partnership with Break Through Tech . The goal is to increase the number of these students graduating with a tech degree at UMD by 12.5 percentage points by 2026, through curriculum innovation, career access and community building. “The University of Maryland is committed to making computing inclusive and accessible for all,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “Break Through Tech will contribute to our efforts with... read more
The funding supports Bhatele’s efforts to use data-driven machine learning models to optimize the efficiency and throughput of extreme-scale parallel systems, and the performance of parallel applications running on them.
A University of Maryland expert in high performance computing (HPC) has received a National Science Foundation award to develop innovative methods for optimizing the performance of parallel applications and runtimes, and the operational efficiency of supercomputers and HPC clusters. Abhinav Bhatele , an assistant professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), is principal investigator of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which is expected to total $550,000 over five years. The funding... read more
The students will design a spacesuit information display within an augmented reality environment that will assist astronauts in conducting spacewalks more effectively.
A team of University of Maryland students has been invited to participate in the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) Artemis Student Challenge. SUITS is a software design challenge that tasks students across the United States with developing spacesuit information displays within augmented reality environments that will assist astronauts in conducting spacewalks more effectively. The challenge tackles key aspects of NASA’s Artemis missions, which will land the first woman and next man on the moon, and provides students the opportunity to work hands on toward... read more
The assistant professor seeks ways to make database software more intuitive for non-data scientists
Leilani Battle loves what she does, and her passion comes through in abundant productivity. The assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland earned her Ph.D. just 3 1/2 years ago, and she has already racked up an impressive number of mentees and published research papers. “I love doing research,” she said, “and really early on in my Ph.D., I learned that I could teach others, especially women and people of color, to have the same or similar skill sets and walk them down that path to the point where they could become accomplished researchers and independent researchers... read more
The new concentration prepares CS undergraduates to work on the frontiers of technology
In December 2020, Mateo Elezi and Maya Fuchs became the first University of Maryland students to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a specialization in machine learning . A new offering from the Department of Computer Science, the specialization prepares students to work and study at the frontiers of technology where machine learning leads the way. In machine learning, computers use algorithms and statistical models to identify patterns in data that enable them to make decisions and perform tasks such as guiding self-driving cars, predicting our media preferences, diagnosing... read more
Just two years after graduating, Brett Boyer is making his mark as co-founder of the software startup Datakwip.
Years before Brett Boyer got his B.S. in computer science at the University of Maryland in 2018, he made a discovery that would change his life: he realized he had a knack for inventing things that could solve problems—and he loved doing it. It started when he was a teenager, dealing with the challenges of his first car. “My first car was a ’93 Honda Accord that barely ran. The locks on it didn’t even work,” he recalled. Frustrating? Absolutely. But to Boyer, it was a problem just waiting for a solution. “When I thought about it, I realized I could solve this,” Boyer said. “I took some RFID (... read more
Professor Ashok K. Agrawala recently received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of computer science, by Dayalbagh Educational Institute (deemed university), Dayalbagh, Agra, India, on the occasion of its 39 th convocation held on 22 nd January 2021. An undergraduate in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India and a doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, Agrawala joined the department of computer science, University of Maryland, College Park, in 1971. For the past fifty... read more
An expert in human-centered security and privacy has been named to help lead the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) for the next five months, after which she will assume a new role as the center’s director. Michelle Mazurek , an associate professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), was just appointed as co-director of MC2 through June 30, 2021. She will help lead the multidisciplinary center with Charalampos ‘Babis’ Papamanthou , the current director. Papamanthou will be leaving the University of Maryland... read more
The team was led by Kevin Bock (in photo), a fourth-year doctoral student in computer science, and his adviser, assistant professor of computer science Dave Levin.
A team of University of Maryland computer and network security researchers recently won an Applied Networking Research Prize for a paper they published in 2020 that addresses internet censorship. The prize— given by the Internet Society in coordination with the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)—recognizes outstanding results in applied networking, interesting new research ideas of potential relevance to the internet standards community, and upcoming people that are likely to have an impact on internet standards and technologies. The UMD team was led by Kevin Bock (in photo), a fourth-year... read more