Recent News & Accomplishments
2018
Twenty-two years ago, a plucky and friendly Ms. Brenda K. Chick joined the Department of Computer Science as a member of the Chair's office staff. There, she handled everything from keeping the chair's calendar, to answering important phone calls, to handling APT paperwork and other important files. After a few years, she became the Department's Coordinator for Facilities. In that position, she has capably managed large- and small-scale projects--everything from building new rooms, to painting and carpeting A.V. Williams, to managing repairs after flood damage--always ensuring that everything... read more
by Rebecca Copeland, Institute of Systems Research Professor Dana Nau (CS/ISR), Professor Michele Gelfand (Psychology), and Assistant Professor Tom Goldstein (CS) are part of a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), one of 24 awarded this year by the Department of Defense. MURIs provide funding for up to five years to academic institutions for multidisciplinary basic research, subject to satisfactory research progress and the availability of funds. Together, the 2018 MURIs total $169 million in funding. The Maryland researchers are part of “Innovations in Mean-Field Game... read more
To Our CS Community: Many of you may have seen on social media over the last few days a TA handbook linked to our department. This document was deeply troubling and made generalizations about our female students, in particular, which were offensive and unacceptable. As the chair of the CS department and the dean of the college, we want to make clear that this document is counter to the values of our department, college and university. This document is not an official department statement and we were not aware it existed on our website. Upon learning of the document, it was immediately removed... read more
From Department Chair Ming C. Lin : The TA Handbook posted on the CS website contained highly inappropriate, stereotypical characterizations of women. The handbook has been removed from the site, and we apologize for its offensive contents. While the origin of this handbook is not immediately known, it does not reflect our department’s values or beliefs. We denounce all misogynistic attitudes toward women and will continue to work diligently to provide all students a warm and welcoming environment to learn and succeed. read more
Ph.D. Students Saeed Seddighin and Pan Xu will be two recipients of the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for 2018. Saeed Seddighin works in theoretical computer science and is advised by Professor MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi. Seddighin's most recent papers are entitled "Fast Algorithms for Knapsack via Convolution and Prediction," "From Battlefields to Presidential Elections: Winning Strategies of Blotto and Auditing Games," and "Approximating Edit Distance in Truly Subquadratic Time: Quantum and MapReduce," all which were given at the ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) in 2018... read more
Garrett Katz (PhD, '17) will begin his tenure as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Syracuse University in the Fall Semester of 2018. Katz currently works as a post doctoral researcher for his former advisor, Professor Jim Reggia. About his advisor, he said, "Jim has been very supportive of me during my entire time here. I am sad to be leaving working with him so soon." Katz' research with Reggia focuses on neural computations that support cognitive processing in humans and robots. At Syracuse, Katz looks forward to being solely responsible for teaching and advising students as... read more
Prayaag Venkat ('17) has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship for 2018. During his time as an undergraduate, he worked on research projects under computer science professors David Mount, Samir Khuller, Andrew Childs, and Penghui Yao (former fellow of QuICS, who is now Assistant Professor at Nanjing University). About his reasearch advisors, Venkat said, "[t]hey were all fantastic advisors and inspired me to attend graduate school. I am very grateful to them for all the time they gave me and effort they spent on me." Venkat has also been the recipient of a Goldwater... read more
by Rebecca Copeland, Institute of Systems Research A team of four University of Maryland researchers has been awarded a nine-month, $646K grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for "Robust Semi-Autonomous Swarm Tactics for Situational Awareness in Uncertain Environments." Assistant Professor Huan Xu (AE/ISR) is the principal investigator. The team also includes Assistant Professor Michael Otte (AE); Dinesh Manocha (CS/ECE/UMIACS), who will soon join the university as the Paul Chrisman Iribe Chair of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Ming... read more
Computer Science graduate student Tongyang Li has been named a 2018 recipient of an IBM PhD Fellowship Award . Li is in the third year of his PhD program in the Department of Computer Science, and his research focuses upon theory aspects of quantum computing. Li is advised by Andrew Childs, a professor of computer science and co-director of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS). For his thesis, Li plans to work on theory aspects of quantum machine learning and optimization. Last year, Li published articles on quantum query complexity and quantum algorithms. He... read more
This article is republished from Terp Magazine online : Brin Family Gift Supports Both Sides of Science of Computing BY CHRIS CARROLL Sam Brin ’09 has nothing but praise for the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which famously launched his elder brother, Sergey ’93, on the path to becoming a founder of internet behemoth and computing kingpin Google … But, in retrospect, if he had just one little critique, he’d have benefited from greater integration of the hardware side of the discipline in his studies. That’s why nearly half of a new $2 million gift from the Brin family... read more