New Faculty to Join UMD’s Department of Computer Science
The University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science will welcome eight new faculty members over the next year, expanding research and teaching capabilities across a range of disciplines. Their work spans natural language processing, bioinformatics, robotics, computer vision and sound design for interactive media. These appointments include tenure-track faculty joining in fall 2025 and 2026, as well as professional-track educators supporting instructional needs across computer science and immersive media.
“We’re pleased to welcome these talented scholars to our department,” said Department Chair Matthias Zwicker, who holds the Elizabeth Iribe Chair for Innovation and the Phillip H. and Catherine C. Horvitz Professorship. “Their expertise spans critical areas in computing, and their presence will strengthen our research, teaching and community in meaningful ways.”
Fang’s research focuses on general robotic manipulation. His work addresses the data limitations in robotics by developing data-centric hardware, applying data scaling principles and designing data-efficient learning methods. Fang’s projects have been recognized through best paper and nomination awards at robotics conferences.
Prior to his current research, Fang completed his doctoral degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
Fang will join the department in 2026.
Firtina’s research focuses on the intersection of computer architecture and bioinformatics. His work includes improving the speed, energy efficiency and accuracy of genome analysis, hardware-software co-design for bioinformatics applications and computational tools for genome editing.
His publications have appeared in both bioinformatics and architecture-focused conferences and journals. He recently earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from ETH Zurich.
Firtina will begin his appointment in fall 2025.
Gupta’s research explores computer vision in complex environments and the policy implications of dual-use AI. His work has supported applications such as post-disaster damage assessment following the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake and the detection of illicit maritime activity. Beyond technical contributions, he has examined the integration of AI in both civilian and military systems.
He previously served as the technical director for autonomy at the Defense Innovation Unit and held advisory roles in AI policy. His affiliations include research fellow at the Human Rights Center, AI policy fellow at the Center for Security in Politics and graduate fellow at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab. Before beginning his Ph.D., he led an AI-focused humanitarian research lab at Carnegie Mellon University and contributed to real-time machine learning for Apple Vision Pro.
Gupta, who is completing his doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, will join the department in 2026 with a joint appointment in the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM).
Liu’s research involves building computer vision systems that can operate in dynamic and physical environments. His work on open-source models and datasets has been downloaded and reused over a million times by developers and researchers.
Liu is completing his Ph.D. in computer science at Columbia University. His work has attracted widespread attention in technical communities and has been featured in public media outlets.
He will join the department in 2026.
Wiegreffe studies the interpretability and explainability of language models in natural language processing. Her work examines how neural networks make predictions, with the goal of developing models that are more understandable to human users. She has contributed to ongoing discussions on transparency in AI systems and regularly serves on academic conference committees.
She earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022. Her experience includes internships at Google and the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), where she was later named an outstanding intern. She currently holds a postdoctoral research position at Ai2 and the University of Washington.
Wiegreffe will join the department in fall 2025.
Kim specializes in the intersection of computer graphics, computer vision and robotics, with a focus on interactive applications. Her research includes work on crowd simulation, pedestrian tracking and human-robot interactions. Earlier work addressed articulated body simulation, haptics and collision detection.
Kim earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked in the GAMMA group with Professors Ming C. Lin and Dinesh Manocha. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Ewha Womans University in Korea. Her professional background includes positions at SRI International, Disney Research Los Angeles, Apple, AMD and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.
Kim joins the department as a professional-track faculty member.
Anna Evtushenko
Evtushenko brings experience in computer science theory and data science education. Evtushenko earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University.
She will join the department as a professional-track faculty member.
Nolan brings expertise in sound design and interactive media, with a focus on game audio and interdisciplinary teaching. His research and teaching involve bridging sound design with visual and interactive technologies.
Nolan holds an MFA in visual art and an MM in music composition from George Mason University and a BM in music synthesis from Berklee College of Music. He was part of the founding team of the Mason Game and Technology Academy and served as an assistant professor in game sound and music at George Mason’s Computer Game Design Program.
He will join the department as a professional-track faculty member in the Immersive Media Design (IMD) program.
—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications
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