Recent News & Accomplishments
2016
This summer, the Department is hosting several computer science students from around the country for the Research Experience for Undergraduates for 2016 (REU). The REU students arrived on June 2nd 2016 and will be working with several faculty members on challenging research projects including the following: Bill Gasarch : Fun with Probability Clyde Kruskal : The Can't Stop game Tom Goldstein : Deep Learning Jon Katz : Theoretic Approaches to Public Key Crypto Samir Khuller : Scheduling Jobs in data centers, online and offline The students will work in teams with their mentors through August... read more
Jeff Hollingsworth has been elected Chair of ACM SIGHPC (special interest group for High Performance Computing) for a three-year term starting July 1st. He currently serves as Vice-Chair. From their website: "SIGHPC is the first international group within a major professional society that is devoted exclusively to the needs of students, faculty, and practitioners in high performance computing. SIGHPC's mission is to help spread the use of HPC, help raise the standards of the profession, and help ensure a rich and rewarding career for people involved in the field." As the Chair, Hollingsworth... read more
The Department is pleased to announce that Jan Plane has been promoted to Principal Lecturer. This is the highest rank of the professional instructional faculty track, and Plane is the first to receive this title. The qualifications include: "In addition to the qualifications required of the Senior Lecturer, appointees to this rank shall have an exemplary teaching record over the course of at least 5 years full-time service or its equivalent as a Senior Lecturer (or similar appointment at another institution) and/or the equivalent of 5 years full-time professional experience as well as... read more
On May 26th 2016, Johns Hopkins University named Michael Schatz (PhD '10) a Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Computational Biology. He will have joint appointments in Computer Science, and the Department of Biology. Schatz joins Johns Hopkins University from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he was an associate professor in the Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, the co-director of the Undergraduate Research Program, and helped lead the Cancer Genetics and Genomics Program in the CSHL Cancer Center. Schatz graduated from the University of Maryland with a PhD in 2010. His... read more
On May 11th, 2016, Associate Dean of CMNS Robert Infantino hosted the CMNS Board of Visitors' Awards ceremony in the Physical Sciences Complex. This year, two members of the Department of Computer Science received awards for their outstanding contributions to academia. Professor Aravind Srinivasan has won a CMNS Board of Visitor's Distinguished Faculty Award for 2016. Srinivasan has been recently been named an ACM Fellow (2014), he is an IEEE Fellow, and he currently edits three journals in addition to his research, advising, and teaching. The CMNS Board of Visitors has named He He as an... read more
Amol Deshpande , Mohammad Taghi Hajiaghayi, and Mihai Pop are now full professors in the Department of Computer Science. read more
Professor Atif Memon has received a Fraunhofer-Bessel Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation and the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research. Up to three scientists from non-European countries are awarded this honor each year. In order to receive the award, one must have completed a doctorate less than 18 years ago, be internationally recognized for acheivments in applied research, and likely to continue producing cutting-edge work which will have an influence on a given discipline for years to come. According to Professor Adam Porter, Scientific Director and Executive... read more
New program will draw on the two institutions’ long-established leadership and expertise in computer science.
The University of Maryland and the Max Planck Society are pleased to announce the establishment of a joint doctoral research program in computer science. read more
As a part of Ben Shneiderman's course on How to do Great Research, graduate students are writing short articles on research that inspires them. “The sharp thrill of seeing them [killdeer birds] reminded me of childhood happiness, gifts under the Christmas tree, perhaps, a kind of euphoria we adults manage to shut out most of the time. This is why I bird‐watch, to recapture what it's like to live in this moment, right now." — Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir David Jacobs , professor of computer science at UMD, and his colleague Peter Belhumeur professor of... read more
As a part of Ben Shneiderman's course on How to do Great Research, graduate students are writing short articles on research that inspires them. Mental health is one of the largest problems facing the United States today. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) highlights some gloomy statistics: one in four adults suffers from some form of mental health disorder; 60% of them do not receive proper diagnosis or care; and the spending on serious mental illness ends up costing Americans nearly $200 billion in lost earnings each year [1]. The difficulty of diagnosing mental illness lies... read more