Recent News & Accomplishments

 2017

Descriptive Image for Happy 90th  Birthday to Founding Chair Jack Minker (18602)
In his first email to the department since being named interim chair of Computer Science on July 3rd, 2017, Professor Larry Davis sent the following email celebrating Emeritus Professor Jack Minker: "Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Jack Minker on celebrating his 90th birthday tomorrow, July 4. Jack joined the University of Maryland in 1971 and was the founding chair (1974) of our department. Through his hard work both as chair, and as a pioneer in the logical foundations of artificial intelligence, he set the high standards that we have all strived to maintain for nearly 50 years. Jack...  read more
Descriptive Image for Larry Davis to serve as interim chair of Computer Science Department  (18600)
Via CMNS: Larry Davis has been named interim chair of the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, effective July 1, 2017. A Distinguished University Professor, Davis joined the UMD faculty in 1981 and served as department chair from 1999 to 2012 and as founding director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) from 1985 to 1994. “With more than 40 years spent on campus and considerable prior experience leading the department as chair, Larry was the perfect candidate to keep computer science moving forward during this interim period,” said...  read more
The Department is pleased to announce two new members: Roger Eastman will be a Visiting Professor, and Ilchun Yoon will be joining the faculty as a lecturer Both will be teaching undergraduate courses during the upcoming Fall Semester. Professor Roger Eastman currently serves as a Professor of Computer Science at Loyola University, Maryland. Eastman earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Maryland in 1990; his advisor was Professor Larry Davis. His research interests include: Image registration, the alignment of digital images taken in various applications, notably...  read more
Each year, the Department of Computer Science awards outstanding professors, instructors, and teaching assistants for the ingenuity, intelligence, thoughtfulness, and care that they bring to the classroom. This year, awardees have been recognized for their dedication, love of science, and the ways that they help to make the department one of the best at the University of Maryland. Assistant Professor Marine Carpuat, Senior Lecturer Nelson Padua-Perez, and Senior Lecturer Fawzi Emad, served on the award committee. Congratulations to the recipients of this year’s awards! Professor of the year:...  read more
Descriptive Image for Code for the Cure: Using Classroom Driven Research to Solve Real-world Problems (18584)
The University of Maryland strives to conduct leading research in state of the art laboratories throughout campus. However, as required skillsets for jobs in STEM grows, upper-level undergraduate students in the Department of Computer Science are finding new opportunities to learn research skills inside of the classroom while applying them to real-world problems. In Professor Atif Memon's Programming Handheld Systems class, offered as CMSC436, 83 undergraduate students worked with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a comprehensive suite of apps to improve...  read more
Descriptive Image for David Mount invited to be keynote speaker at ESA 2017 (18564)
Professor Dave Mount will be one of two keynote speakers for the 25th annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA) in Vienna Austria. The symposium will take place from September 4th-8th 2017. The ESA is one of the premier conferences on algorithms and covers research in all aspects of the design, analysis, engineering, and application of algorithms and data structures. ESA is held under the aegis of ALGO which is the congress of the leading international gathering of researchers on Algorithms in Europe.  read more
The Computer Science Department is pleased to announce our newest professors of computer science. Samir Khuller, Professor and Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science mentioned the diverse interests and talent pool of the newest members of the faculty. "Our new, brilliant faculty will add to the wonderful, diverse graduate and undergraduate courses we offer. Their research will greatly contribute to our well-established innovative, brilliant, work that our amazing faculty members continually produce," he said. These four assistant professors will join the thirteen professors added...  read more
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Kianté Brantley has been awarded a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in Bridge to the Doctorate (LSAMP DB) fellowship. This highly competitive fellowship is awarded to encourage and support University of Maryland graduate students who are pursing graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It also aims to foster a diverse and interactive science community and seeks to increase the number of underrepresented students who earn degrees in STEM fields. In addition to this good news, Brantley learned that he is the recipient of a Sloan PEM Equipment Grant...  read more
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Jagdeep Singh,’86, Qiang Yang Ph.D.,’89 and Rajiv Gandhi Ph.D.,’03 Inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame
As part of the commencement activities held on May 22, the department honored its three newest members of the Alumni Hall of Fame . Professor Samir Khuller, Elizabeth Iribe Chair of Computer Science, served as master of ceremonies and the inductees in attendance offered remarks. Jagdeep Singh Jagdeep Singh has spent his life as an entrepreneur, and innovator. After finishing his undergraduate degree by the age of 19, Singh went to work for Hewlett-Packard before founding several very successful companies. He was named to MIT Technology He is currently the cofounder and CEO of QuantumScape...  read more
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Professor Jeff Foster has been named one of the Outstanding Directors of Graduate Studies for this academic year. Since 2012, the Graduate School has presented this award to individuals who have “made exceptional contributions to graduate education, a graduate program, and/or the graduate student experience in that program.” Foster has served as the Director of Graduate Studies for the last five years, and is also a memeber (and co-founder) of the Programming Languages at University of Maryland (PLUM) Lab .  read more