Recent News & Accomplishments
2026
Pierce Darragh, Yonghan Lee and Renata Valieva recognized among the top 2% of UMD graduate assistants for 2025–2026.
Two doctoral students in the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science and one from the Department of Mathematics have received the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award for the 2025–2026 academic year. Computer science Ph.D. students Pierce Darragh and Yonghan Lee and mathematics Ph.D. student Renata Valieva were recognized by the University of Maryland Graduate School for their contributions as graduate assistants in research and instruction. More than 4,000 graduate students serve the campus each year as research, teaching or administrative assistants. The Graduate School... read more
In CMSC 435, Associate Professor James Purtilo’s software engineering class is helping transform scanned ant specimens into lifelike 3D models.
For more than a decade, Evan Economo’s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects—a subfield of entomology known as morphology—but the process is costly and time-consuming. “One limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it could take 10 hours to scan one specimen,” explained Economo, who chairs the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology and holds the James B. Gahan and Margaret H. Gahan Professorship. As a senior author of a paper published in the journal Nature... read more
Inside the University of Maryland lab where researchers explore how signals such as sound and wireless waves can help machines better understand the physical world.
At the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, the Intelligent Connected Secure Mobile Systems (iCoSMoS) Lab explores how machines can sense and interpret the environments around them. Led by Associate Professor of Computer Science Nirupam Roy , the lab studies how signals, such as sound and wireless reflections, can reveal information about space, movement and materials. Researchers combine sensing hardware, signal processing and machine learning to build systems that can operate on low-power devices. Among them is Ph.D. student Harshvardhan Chaturdas Takawale , whose work... read more
More than 100 students from 24 schools tested coding and problem-solving skills at the Iribe Center.
The University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science welcomed more than 100 high school students from across the Washington metropolitan area on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, for the 36th Annual High School Programming Contest at the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering . Twenty-four teams participated in the three-hour competition, working together to solve algorithmic and programming problems under timed conditions. The annual contest brings students to campus to apply coding knowledge in a collaborative setting while engaging with peers from across the region. The... read more
She discusses her path into computer science, research on large language models and advice for students entering the field.
Sarah Wiegreffe , an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, studies how deep learning systems for language operate and how their behavior can be interpreted. Her research focuses on interpretability in machine learning, particularly large language models, and examines how these systems can be made more transparent, controllable and reliable. Wiegreffe earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022. She held internships at Google and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, where she was later recognized as an... read more
Students and employers met at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union for the Spring Career and Internship Fair to discuss internships, full-time roles and workforce expectations in the tech sector.
Students carrying resumes and portfolios moved between employer tables at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union on Monday, February 23, as the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science organized its Spring Career and Internship Fair. The event registered more than 1,000 students seeking internships and employment opportunities, connecting them with recruiters from government agencies, private companies and engineering organizations for in-person conversations about technical skills, workplace expectations and potential career paths. Throughout the afternoon, recruiters spoke with... read more
CS PhD student Kasra Torshizi, mentored by Associate Professor Pratap Tokekar, contributes to AI-driven advances in machine learning, computer vision, and autonomous systems research at UMD’s MATRIX Lab.
University of Maryland (UMD) MATRIX Lab researchers are proving that real-world challenges can be solved with cost-effective research that efficiently uses resources. MATRIX Lab graduate students Ryan Lowe (M.Eng. ’26, Robotics) and Jacob Safeer (M.S. ’26, Aerospace Engineering) and UMD Computer Science PhD student Kasra Torshizi are working with the lab's Director of Test and Evaluation of Autonomous Systems, Dr. Donald "Bucket" Costello, on ways to address various autonomy challenges in the MATRIX Lab's Omni-Domain Autonomous Systems Integration Space (OASIS). Ryan's research investigates... read more
Inside the lab where researchers investigate how bodies, senses and technology work together to shape learning.
At the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, researchers in the Embodied Dynamics Laboratory explore how technology interacts with the human body and mind. Led by Assistant Professor Jun Nishida , the lab studies how perception, movement and sensory experience shape learning and behavior across physical and digital environments. Among its researchers is Ph.D. student Logan Stevens , whose work includes how extended reality technologies can support cognition through carefully designed sensory interaction. This portrait highlights the lab’s research through Stevens’ work,... read more
UMD computer science Professor Heng Huang leads the project’s artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts and plans to build an innovative large genomic language model for Alzheimer’s that will drive drug discovery for the disease.
The National Institutes of Health awarded $12.5 million over five years to support an initiative that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to quickly search vast stores of genomic, biomarker, and cognitive data for patterns that signal risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related forms of dementia. The Phase II award from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) will continue to support a multi-institution team—including principal investigators from the University of Southern California, the University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, and the University of Maryland—in its... read more
With $5.1 million in NIH funding, Professor Mihai Pop leads efforts to build better tools for analyzing genetic data and to reduce errors in public biological databases used in medical and scientific research.
The past decade has seen explosive growth in the collection and use of metagenomic data—genetic material (DNA or RNA) extracted directly from environmental or clinical samples such as soil, water or the human gut. While the surge is fueling breakthroughs in disease tracking, antimicrobial resistance analysis and enzyme discovery, it is also creating significant data-management challenges. Researchers at the University of Maryland are working to address those challenges with support from two grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling $5.1 million. The team is developing open-source... read more