Recent News & Accomplishments
2021
The two emeritus faculty were recognized for their foundational work two decades ago that underlies modern treemap algorithms.
Two University of Maryland experts in visualization and visual analytics will be honored in October for academic papers they co-authored 20 years ago. Benjamin Bederson (left in photo), professor emeritus of computer science, and Ben Shneiderman (right), Distinguished University Professor emeritus of computer science, will be recognized with the IEEE VIS Test of Time Award at VIS2021 , considered the premier forum for advances in visualization and visual analytics. This prestigious award recognizes articles published at previous conferences whose contents are still vibrant and useful today... read more
He was recognized by the SMA for his longstanding work involving quadtrees and other multidimensional spatial data structures for sorting spatial information.
Hanan Samet , a Distinguished University Professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), has been recognized for his influential contributions to the field of solid modeling. The Solid Modeling Association (SMA) recently conferred “Pioneer” status upon Samet, an honor reserved for early contributors to solid modeling who have been influential in starting and expanding the field and its applications in academia or industry. To qualify, one must have contributed to research and scholarship focused on solid... read more
Blurring the boundary between digital and physical art, performance and gaming, students in the University of Maryland’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program are showcasing their work this week at NextNOW Fest , UMD’s annual multi-medium arts festival. Called IMD@NextNOW, the showcase will be on display from September 16—17 in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, and September 18 at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The exhibits are diverse in medium and topic including a horror game in augmented reality (AR), a night food market in virtual reality (VR) and... read more
Program ranks in the Top 10 for the second year in a row.
The University of Maryland’s computer science program ranks 9 th among the country’s public undergraduate programs in the 2022 edition of U.S. News & World Report ’s “Best Colleges.” The program ranks 18th overall. UMD also ranks in the Top 15 in five computer science specialties: Cybersecurity: #4 public, #8 overall Biocomputing/Bioinformatics/Biotechnology: #4 public, #10 overall Artificial Intelligence: #6 public, #10 overall Data Analytics/Science: #10 public, #21 overall Software Engineering: #12 public, #16 overall UMD’s computer science graduate program ranks 16th in the nation... read more
Break Through Tech DC hosts its first summer Guild at UMD
Trying out a career in tech can be the best way to explore whether it’s the right fit. And this summer, University of Maryland students got that opportunity through the university’s recently announced partnership with Break Through Tech , which aims to propel more students who identify as women and non-binary into tech education—and ultimately tech careers. Through the Guild program , 55 students got paid to gain hands-on experience in designing and coding real-world applications. With two weeklong virtual sessions in August, incoming freshmen and rising sophomores at UMD learned about design... read more
On Thursday, August 26 th the department welcomed partners (from on-campus and off) and the Fall 2020 & 2021 cohorts of Master’s and PhD students to attend the Computer and Computational Sciences Research Day. Co-hosted with UMIACS , the event featured more than 25 faculty talks in association with Applied Math and the iSchool, in the Antonov auditorium at the Iribe Center . The presentations offered a unique opportunity for the faculty researchers to give brief summaries of their current research. “It was great to meet students from two cohorts face to face in our magnificent building,... read more
The new institute—with Department of Computer Science faculty member Andrew Childs as director—will significantly add to the vibrant quantum research ecosystem established in the mid-Atlantic region.
The University of Maryland has been tapped to lead a multi-institutional effort supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is focused on developing quantum simulation devices that can understand, and thereby exploit, the rich behavior of complex quantum systems. The NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation announced on September 2, 2021, brings together computer scientists, engineers and physicists from five academic institutions and the federal government. Funded by a $25 million award from NSF, researchers in the UMD-led institute will develop... read more
Daniel Gottesman , one of the newest Fellows of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS) and the Brin Family Endowed Professor in Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Maryland, is no stranger to the region. He grew up in Montgomery County, just a short drive from the Maryland campus, and both his parents worked as biologists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Now, Gottesman is returning to his native Maryland after a career that has taken him across North America and through different areas of quantum information science. In his wake,... read more
An estimated 42 million sex workers drive more than $180 million in business annually worldwide. They often rely on the internet to do their job, but keeping their private and professional identities separate online is a critical safety challenge. Sex workers—and other vulnerable groups such as trans people and intimate partner abuse survivors—face higher rates of stalking, harassment, and assault. Yet little research has been conducted on how to improve digital security tools with these users in mind. A multi-institutional team of digital security analysts recently published a paper... read more
University of Maryland researchers are developing a novel algorithm that significantly improves the virtual reality (VR) experience by redirecting users to avoid colliding with physical objects. The project is led by third-year computer science doctoral student Niall Luke Williams , a researcher in the Geometric Algorithms for Modeling, Motion, and Animation (GAMMA) lab. His advisers are Distinguished University Professor Dinesh Manocha and assistant research professor Aniket Bera , both of whom hold appointments in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. “... read more