Recent News & Accomplishments

 2019

Descriptive Image (20213)
Professor Aravind Srinivasan and Assistant Professor John Dickerson are recipients of 2018 Google Faculty Research Awards. Their projects were two of 158 funded for this year out of 910 proposals from all over the world. Srinivasan and Dickerson’s award covers “tuition for a graduate student and provide[s] both faculty and students the opportunity to work directly with Google researchers and engineers.” Srinivasan and Dickerson will be engaging in research on optimization to tackle the problem, “AI for Efficient and Equitable Organ Allocation Policies.” In the end, their work seeks to lower...  read more
Descriptive Image (20200)
Professor Larry Davis has been named a recipient of the 2019 USM Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Excellence in Research/Scholarship/Creative Activities. This award, which is the highest honor presented by the Board of Regents, is for "exemplary faculty members within the University System of Maryland," who demonstrate "exceptional scholarship, researrch or creative activity that extends or depends the bounds of knowledge and/or is recognized as innovations in the nominee's discipline." Davis has been a professor in the Department since 1981, after spending time at the University of Texas...  read more
Professor Dinesh Manocha and Dean Amitabh Varshney among presenters
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic made a quick stop at the University of Maryland on March 6 to learn about research involving artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, and virtual and augmented reality. The prime minister was on a state visit to the U.S., accompanied by his aides and international journalists. The visit was hosted by ISR Director William Regli (CS/ISR) and the university’s Office of International Affairs. Three demonstrations were presented in the Maryland Robotics Center’s Robotics Realization Lab. Professor Rama Chellappa (ECE/CS/UMIACS) and...  read more
Descriptive Image (20179)
Emeritus Professor Ben Shneiderman has been featured in an article in GeekWire on the future of artificial intelligence policy in the United States. During a panel at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, moderated by AI2 CEO Oren Etzioni, Shneiderman proposed that a National Algorithms Safety Board that functions in a similar fashion to the National Transportation Saftey Board (NTSB). He suggests that is a possible model to ensure that proper action is taken during algorithmic failures. This NASB would have experts who could determine remedies to problems caused. Shneiderman...  read more
Descriptive Image (20173)
on the Future of Robotics
In late February Professor Dinesh Manocha was interviewed by AAAS on the future of robotics. He was an exhibitor the Annual Meeting for the organization in which he demonstrated three very exciting Maryland inspired robots called Robo Terp, Robo Crab, and Robo-Raven. Manocha was made a fellow of the organization in 2011. One of the most important questions asked in the interview was about the future of robotics at the University for our students: *** What draws your students to this technology today? I get all kinds of students, especially at Maryland. I’m teaching a class on robotics. I’m...  read more
Descriptive Image (20143)
Saha was advised by Professor Samir Khuller
Barna Saha (Ph.D, '11) has been named to the newest class of Sloan Fellows. Saha, advised by Professor Samir Khuller, is a theoretical computer scientist who also works on the mathematical foundations of data science. She is an assistant professor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Information and Computer Science. "I try to determine the fastest possible algorithms for important optimization problems. I have managed to find significantly faster approximation algorithms for problems including shortest paths in graphs, matrix multiplication over certain algebraic structures...  read more
Photo of John Dickerson (20139)
Dickerson is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and an Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Assistant Professor John Dickerson has received an NSF CAREER Award for his work entitled Scalable and Robust Dynamic Matching Market Design . Dickerson’s work will connect artificial intelligence and matching market theory and practice to investigate how matching markets—systems that pair individuals to products or to other people—can be improved even as their particular goals must closely adhere to stakeholders’ value judgements and operate under forms of uncertainty. Citing disparate examples in which matching theory is used, including organ allocation and exchange, graduate school...  read more
Photo of David Van Horn (20138)
Van Horn is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Researcher in Programming Languages
Assistant Professor David Van Horn has received an NSF CAREER Award for his work entitled Gradual Verification: From Scripting to Proving . His work will investigate the theory and pragmatics of next generation programming languages that enable users to gradually adopt automated verification and formal method techniques for making software with strong behavioral guarantees. These next generation languages will bridge the gap between today's expressive, widely-used programming languages like JavaScript and Haskell and verification-oriented languages like Coq and F*, which are used by more...  read more
In a recently published paper CS researchers proposed an intuitive method to facilitate constructing artificial neural networks. The method, inspired by human learning, proposes a multi-stage information distillation approach using multi-resolution features and feedbacks. The method facilitates information propagation and makes neural networks more efficient and easier to visualize. Chengxi Ye, Chinmaya Devaraj, Michael Maynord, Cornelia Fermüller and Yiannis Aloimonos, "Evenly Cascaded Convolutional Networks," 2018 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), Seattle, WA, USA, 2018...  read more
Descriptive Image (20105)
Assistant Professor Leilani Battle has received an NSF CRII award for her research entitled CHS: Modeling Analysis Behavior to Support Interactive Exploration of Massive Datasets . Her project works to improve the visualization and data management systems that scientists and other analysts use to extract and understand information on both broad and granular scales. By integrating these two types of systems, her work will infer user goals and future behaviors based upon the ways in which they have previously accessed and used the above mentioned systems. Battle joined the Department of...  read more