Recent News & Accomplishments
2026
Admitted applicants meet faculty, explore labs and connect with graduate students at the Brendan Iribe Center.
The Department of Computer Science held its annual Graduate Visit Day on March 13, 2026, welcoming admitted prospective Ph.D. students to the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering. The event gave visitors the chance to meet faculty members, speak with current graduate students and learn more about the department’s research environment before making final enrollment decisions. The University of Maryland’s graduate computer science program is consistently ranked among the top programs in the United States. According to U.S. News & World Report, the university’s graduate... read more
The Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS) has announced 11 Broader Impact Awards designed to expand access, participation and understanding of trustworthy artificial intelligence. Unveiled March 11, the awards—up to $25,000 each—will support seed projects that help diverse stakeholder communities engage with and influence the future of AI. TRAILS leaders say the funding is intended to spark grassroots initiatives connecting academia, industry and local communities while expanding access to AI education and governance tools. “Our goal is to help close the loop among... read more
CS Ph.D. student Yajie Zhou develops NetArena benchmark to evaluate safety and reliability of AI agents managing complex systems.
As artificial intelligence systems take on a growing role in automating technical tasks, researchers are examining how those tools can be safely applied to critical infrastructure. In areas such as network and system operations, even a small error by automated software can disrupt services used by thousands of people. That risk has made many operators cautious about relying on AI tools, despite their potential to reduce the time required to diagnose and fix system problems. At the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, Ph.D. student Yajie Zhou is studying how AI agents can... read more
Lee explores how large-scale human data can help robots perform everyday household tasks.
As scientists work toward a future where robots can handle everyday household chores like washing dishes, folding laundry and ironing shirts, one of the field’s biggest hurdles is ensuring these machines can operate reliably in the unpredictable environments of real homes. At the University of Maryland, doctoral student Seungjae “Jay” Lee is developing new data-driven methods designed to bridge the gap between impressive laboratory demonstrations and dependable real-world performance. His work centers on enabling robots to learn not only from their own physical experiences, but also from the... read more
UMD doctoral students recognized among the top 2% of graduate assistants for 2025–2026.
Ten doctoral students have received the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award for the 2025–2026 academic year. Joseph Carolan , Pierce Darragh , Eadom Dessalene , Hiba El Oirghi , Peyman Jabbarzade , Donghyeon Joo , Dayeon Ki , Sonal Kumar , Yonghan Lee and Renata Valieva were recognized by the University of Maryland Graduate School for their contributions as graduate assistants across research and instruction. More than 4,000 graduate students serve the campus each year as research, teaching or administrative assistants. The Graduate School established the award to recognize the contributions... 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