Recent News & Accomplishments
2020
Professor Leila De Floriani was recently elected as the 2020 European Association for Computer Graphics Fellow for her outstanding contributions, leadership and service to the fields of Computer Graphics, Visualization and to the Eurographics Association in particular, and for her foundational contribution to starting up one of the most vital research communities in Geometry and Graphics in Italy. A Fellow of IEEE and of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) as well as a Pioneer of the Solid Modeling Association , De Floriani’s research focuses on geometric modeling and... read more
Assistant professor Dave Levin was recently added to serve as a co principal investigator for the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) program’s Scholarship for Service grant. The grant is funded by the National Science Foundation in an effort to provide better opportunities for the exceptional students including research and internships with government agencies. More on the story: Here read more
Distinguished University Professor and Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair Ming Lin has been named to the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery SIGGRAPH Academy in recognition of her contributions in collision detection, physics simulation, natural phenomena, crowd animation, haptics, and sound rendering. The ACM SIGGRAPH Academy Academy was established in 2018 to recognize individuals whose work is influential and who are having a direct impact on the field as proven through the development of new research or innovations in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Lin was a part of a... read more
Three faculty members, Marine Carpuat , Michelle Mazurek and Rob Patro have been promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure. The academic promotions of Carpuat, Mazurek and Patro are in recognition of their outstanding research, excellent teaching, and strong commitment towards service. Carpuat’s research focuses on multilingual natural language processing and machine translation to help people communicate across languages. Her work aims at designing computational models and methods to detect and explain nuanced differences between words and sentences in various... read more
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 will be held online from May 31st to August 31st
Robotic and automation experts from across the globe will convene virtually for technical paper presentations and online discussions for the International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2020 conference which will be held from May 31st to August 31st. ICRA is the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s flagship conference and the premier international forum for robotics researchers to present and discuss their work. UMD Computer Science researchers, some of who are also faculty members of Maryland Robotics Center (MRC), will present 14 papers at the conference. UMD MRC faculty and... read more
Ben Shneiderman was profiled in a New York Times article on May 22. “A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans” written by John Markoff
Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Ben Shneiderman encourages designers to focus on the reliability, safety and trustworthiness of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) as compared to the autonomous Artificial Intelligence In a recent article “ A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans ” in the New York Times on May 22, 2020, by John Markoff, Shniederman expressed his concerns over “blindly automating tasks with computers.” “I think John Markoff’s article is very good and presents my position well,” he said. “However, Markoff portrays me as a critic of AI, but I’m... read more
Assistant Director of Graduate Education, Tom Hurst has been selected to receive the Staff Service Award for Spring 2020 in recognition of his exceptional administration of the graduate program. “We have one of the largest graduate programs on campus with over 300 students,”said Professor Ramani Duraiswami , Associate Chair for Graduate Program. “Tom is committed to the job, and does it without reservations, ensuring he knows every student in the program.” “He has innovated in how our visit day is arranged, in helping launch the research day, and in improving grad student social life,” he... read more
Symposium will be held virtually
On Thursday, May 28th, 2020, the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at the University of Maryland will be celebrating its 37 years of transforming the experience people have with new technologies by hosting a Virtual HCIL Symposium. Part of that symposium features the Human-Centered AI: Reliable, Safe & Trustworthy (HCAI) workshop , which will highlight HCIL members and colleagues’ dedicated and innovative human-centered AI technologies research. From understanding user needs, to developing and evaluating those technologies, the lab’s faculty, staff, and students have been leading the... read more
Computer Science sophomore Mia Bennett has been selected to receive the prestigious U.S. Department of State's Foreign Affairs Information Technology Fellowship (FAIT). Following a highly competitive application process, Bennett is one of only 15 students nationwide to be selected for this esteemed fellowship. Born in Japan, Benett moved to the US around the age of 7. She discovered her curiosity for different cultures and a passion to travel at a very young age. A graduate from James H. Blake High School Benett's first encounter with computer science began in high school with an elective... read more
Assistant Professor Dave Levin receives the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for a project titled "Automatically Learning to Evade Internet Censorship". The funded project focuses on automating the discovery of censorship evasion techniques, developing new ways to measure censorship, and scaling up undergrad research. “The Internet provides an open platform for communication, diplomacy, and education. But this is challenged by censorship of Internet traffic, details of which are typically not made publicly known”, said Levin. “For decades, security researchers have engaged in... read more