2011 News
CS Undergrads win HSEAS Pumpkin Design Contest for 2nd year
On Friday, 10/28, the Hajim School of Engineering held their second annual Pumpkin Design Contest during the October E-Social held in Goergen Hall. Representatives from each department carved pumpkins with a design that reflected their discipline. CSC's students Jon Hinkel and Xu Wang were judged to be the winners based on the current events theme of their pumpkin, dubbed "The Ghost of Steve Jobs". Last year our winning pumpkin entry was a Scribbler Robot that danced to the Monster Mash. Congratulations team!
Kautz brings Intel's Science and Technology Center to UR
Intel announced yesterday that the University of Rochester Department of Computer Science will be one of several university partners in its latest Science and Technology Center. Henry Kautz, chair of Computer Science, will lead UR's Pervasive Computing group.
Astronaut Ed Gibson '59 to present Darcey Riley '12 Prestigious Award
University of Rochester Alumnus and Astronaut Ed Gibson will be in Rochester on September 15th to present URCS senior Darcey Riley (AKA Halley Orshan) with the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation's check for $10,000. Please join us in celebrating this event in Hoyt Hall at 7PM on Thursday September 15th.
VizWiz make international news
Prof. Jeff Bigham's VizWiz research team had made the news yet again. They have been featured in an article on BBC Mobile news.
Darcey Riley '12 named Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Scholar
Rising senior Halley Orshan '12 (known in URCS as Darcey Riley) has been chosen one of the national winners of the 2011-2012 Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Scholar. Students throughout the STEM disciplines at the University of Rochester were nominated by their department chairs and a committee lead by Undergraduate Research Director Steven Manly selected two nominees from Rochester for the national competition. Darcey will receive $10,000, which will be presented to her this fall on campus by a yet unnamed astronaut. Further details of the astronaut's visit, talk and presentation will be announced later this summer. For more information about the program, visit the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation site.
UzZaman takes 3rd place at Center for Research Computing poster contest
UR CS graduate student Naushad UzZaman, a student of James Allen, was awarded 3rd place in the poster contest for Rochester's Center for Research Computing. Naushad's poster was entitled "Multimodal summarization for people with cognitive disabilities in reading, linguistic and verbal comprehension."
Halpern '12 elected SA President
UR CS major Bradley Halpern was elected as President of the student government for the 2011-2012 academic year. Bradley is the second CSC major to hold that office. Previously, Meng Zhu Wang held the office for the 2001-2002 academic year.
Crovella (Ph.D. 1994) named Fellow of ACM
Mark Crovella, currently on the Faculty of the Department of Computer Science at Boston University, was named a Fellow of the ACM 2010. Mark studied under Tom LeBlanc while at Rochester.
ROC HCI and VizWiz in the news
The research of Jeff Bigham and his HCI group recently appeared in New Scientist Magazine.
Frank Ferraro '11 wins NSF Fellowship
Francis (Frank) Ferraro '11 has been selected to receive a 2011 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship. His selection was based on his outstanding abilities and accomplishments, as well as his potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise. As an undergraduate in URCS, Frank has been active in research with Len Schubert, has done summer REUs at both University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins and will continue his studies towards a PhD at one of several select university to which he has been accepted.
URCS Scores Highly in NRC Rankings
The National Research Council recently released its long-awaited Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs. On the “S” scale, which weights metrics based on their perceived importance among leaders in the field, URCS ranked between 13 and 32, nationwide, with 90% confidence. On the “R” scale, which uses a regression model to weight the metrics, URCS ranked between 7 and 39, with 90% confidence.