Recent News & Accomplishments
2020
Shayan Zadeh’s (M.S. '02, computer science) excellent entrepreneurial adventure
Twenty years ago, a young man named Shayan Zadeh took a giant leap of faith, traveling more than 7,000 miles from his home country of Iran to begin a graduate degree at the University of Maryland. “I flew in through JFK, got to BWI and I’ve got a backpack and an admission letter, and I was like, let’s make a life,” Zadeh recalled. For Zadeh, the decision to come to UMD for his master’s in computer science would open the door to an adventure he never imagined—and a career that would make him world-famous as a serial entrepreneur. Zadeh co-founded one of the world’s largest online dating... read more
Opportunity and support prepared December Ph.D. computer science graduate Daniel Votipka for success
Landing an academic position during a pandemic, when most colleges and universities are operating under hiring freezes and cutbacks, may seem highly unlikely. But a solid network, good timing and a strong resume gave Daniel Votipka the leg up he needed. In January 2021, Votipka, who graduates this month with a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland, will begin teaching as a visiting assistant professor at Tufts University in Boston. In May 2020, former UMD Computer Science Professor Jeff Foster clued Votipka into a rare job opening that sounded perfect for him. With plenty... read more
The student organization supports members in their learning and professional development.
Edward Mancho (B.S. ’19, computer science) noticed something about his undergraduate computer science classes—the more classes he took, the fewer Black faces he saw. When one of his instructors, Senior Lecturer Nelson Padua-Perez, mentioned how there were few diversity organizations within UMD’s Department of Computer Science, Mancho was inspired to change that. “I used to be the president of the Multicultural Student Association at Community College of Baltimore County Essex, so creating a student organization focused on minorities, specifically African Americans within CS, seemed like a... read more
The University System of Maryland (USM) Momentum Fund has invested $500,000 in VisiSonics Corp. , an early-stage company based in College Park that was founded by Ramani Duraiswami, a professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. Launched in 2011, VisiSonics develops spatial audio technology and personalization software for audio playback, as well as hardware and software for audio capture and analytics. “We are thrilled to work with the Momentum Fund to help bring cutting-edge audio technology from Maryland to the... read more
An affiliate faculty member in the Department of Computer Science has been selected as a 2020 Fellow by the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the premier international scientific and professional society for those working on computational problems involving human language. Philip Resnik , a professor of linguistics with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), is one of nine Fellows selected by the ACL this year. This significant honor is reserved for researchers whose contributions to the field have been the most... read more
(From left) Leila De Floriani, Catherine Plaisant and Bongshin Lee were recently inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy.
Three researchers with ties to the Department of Computer Science were recently inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy, considered one of the highest and most prestigious honors in the field of computer visualization. Leila De Floriani , a professor of geographical sciences with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), Catherine Plaisant , a senior research scientist in UMIACS, and Bongshin Lee , a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, joined 12 other researchers from around the world named to the 2020 cohort of academy... read more
A team of researchers demonstrated that popular robotic household vacuum cleaners can be remotely hacked to act as microphones.
The researchers—including Nirupam Roy , an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's Department of Computer Science—collected information from the laser-based navigation system in a vacuum robot and applied signal processing and deep learning techniques to recover speech and identify television programs playing in the same room as the device. The research demonstrates the potential for any device that uses light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to be manipulated for collecting sound, despite not having a microphone. This work, which is a collaboration with assistant... read more
Faculty, staff and students at the University of Maryland have joined a national effort to advance accessibility and educational opportunities for young people interested in computer science via a comprehensive initiative that was announced on Nov. 17 . The Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC) and the Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) are two of the 127 organizations involved in CSforALL , a wide-ranging consortium launched in 2016 whose mission is to make computer science an integral part of the educational experience for all K–12 students and teachers... read more
A University of Maryland expert in machine learning is being funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop metrics that will bridge the knowledge gap between empirical and certifiable defenses against adversarial attacks. Soheil Feizi, assistant professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), is principal investigator of $387K two-year project. An adversarial attack involves penetrating machine learning systems in order to make small changes to the input data to confuse the... read more
Two faculty members in the Department of Computer Science are part of a new program that supports up-and-coming researchers on the University of Maryland campus.
Marine Carpuat (left in photo), an associate professor of computer science, and Vanessa Frias-Martinez (right), an associate professor in the College of Information Studies (iSchool) who has an affiliate appointment in computer science, are amongst the first group of 18 UMD faculty selected this fall for the Research Leaders Fellow Program . The program, run by the university’s Division of Research, is designed to assist recently-tenured associate professors as they expand their impact in their respective scientific fields, while also providing them with the leadership skills needed to... read more