Recent News & Accomplishments
2020
She will use the scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in speech and language processing at the University of Edinburgh.
University of Maryland senior Nataliya Stepanova has been named one of the 46 Marshall Scholars for 2021. The Marshall Scholarship , which allows American students to pursue graduate study at any university in the United Kingdom, is considered one of the most prestigious academic awards available to college graduates. “The Marshall Scholarship is not only immensely prestigious, but extraordinarily selective. To be amongst this new class of Britain-bound all-stars is testament to Nataliya’s brilliance, vision, and determination to change the world,” said Richard Bell , a UMD professor of... read more
Strong Fall Enrollment in UMD’s Data Science and Machine Learning Programs for Working Professionals
Courses are taught on weekday evenings to accommodate work schedules and students have the opportunity to earn a master's in less than two years.
The University of Maryland’s Science Academy saw major enrollment growth this fall in its data science and machine learning programs for working professionals. The programs, which are only in their second year, enrolled 54 new students, including 24 UMD alumni. The incoming class ranged in age from 20 to 54 years old and was 39% female. “The growth we’ve seen in our professional programs validates our commitment to diversifying educational offerings that are both of high value and of academic excellence,” said Amy Chester, director of the Science Academy. “As we navigated a new reality this... read more
The national honor recognizes his distinguished efforts to advance science at DARPA.
University of Maryland Computer Science Professor William Regli (M.S. ’94, Ph.D. ’95, computer science) has been named a 2020 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, and election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows were formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of Science on November 24, 2020. A virtual induction ceremony for the 489 newly... read more
Shayan Zadeh’s (M.S. '02, computer science) excellent entrepreneurial adventure
Twenty years ago, a young man named Shayan Zadeh took a giant leap of faith, traveling more than 7,000 miles from his home country of Iran to begin a graduate degree at the University of Maryland. “I flew in through JFK, got to BWI and I’ve got a backpack and an admission letter, and I was like, let’s make a life,” Zadeh recalled. For Zadeh, the decision to come to UMD for his master’s in computer science would open the door to an adventure he never imagined—and a career that would make him world-famous as a serial entrepreneur. Zadeh co-founded one of the world’s largest online dating... read more
Opportunity and support prepared December Ph.D. computer science graduate Daniel Votipka for success
Landing an academic position during a pandemic, when most colleges and universities are operating under hiring freezes and cutbacks, may seem highly unlikely. But a solid network, good timing and a strong resume gave Daniel Votipka the leg up he needed. In January 2021, Votipka, who graduates this month with a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland, will begin teaching as a visiting assistant professor at Tufts University in Boston. In May 2020, former UMD Computer Science Professor Jeff Foster clued Votipka into a rare job opening that sounded perfect for him. With plenty... read more
The student organization supports members in their learning and professional development.
Edward Mancho (B.S. ’19, computer science) noticed something about his undergraduate computer science classes—the more classes he took, the fewer Black faces he saw. When one of his instructors, Senior Lecturer Nelson Padua-Perez, mentioned how there were few diversity organizations within UMD’s Department of Computer Science, Mancho was inspired to change that. “I used to be the president of the Multicultural Student Association at Community College of Baltimore County Essex, so creating a student organization focused on minorities, specifically African Americans within CS, seemed like a... read more
The University System of Maryland (USM) Momentum Fund has invested $500,000 in VisiSonics Corp. , an early-stage company based in College Park that was founded by Ramani Duraiswami, a professor of computer science with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. Launched in 2011, VisiSonics develops spatial audio technology and personalization software for audio playback, as well as hardware and software for audio capture and analytics. “We are thrilled to work with the Momentum Fund to help bring cutting-edge audio technology from Maryland to the... read more
An affiliate faculty member in the Department of Computer Science has been selected as a 2020 Fellow by the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the premier international scientific and professional society for those working on computational problems involving human language. Philip Resnik , a professor of linguistics with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), is one of nine Fellows selected by the ACL this year. This significant honor is reserved for researchers whose contributions to the field have been the most... read more
(From left) Leila De Floriani, Catherine Plaisant and Bongshin Lee were recently inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy.
Three researchers with ties to the Department of Computer Science were recently inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy, considered one of the highest and most prestigious honors in the field of computer visualization. Leila De Floriani , a professor of geographical sciences with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), Catherine Plaisant , a senior research scientist in UMIACS, and Bongshin Lee , a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, joined 12 other researchers from around the world named to the 2020 cohort of academy... read more
A team of researchers demonstrated that popular robotic household vacuum cleaners can be remotely hacked to act as microphones.
The researchers—including Nirupam Roy , an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's Department of Computer Science—collected information from the laser-based navigation system in a vacuum robot and applied signal processing and deep learning techniques to recover speech and identify television programs playing in the same room as the device. The research demonstrates the potential for any device that uses light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology to be manipulated for collecting sound, despite not having a microphone. This work, which is a collaboration with assistant... read more