My Computer Science & Engineering Department

Each year the Faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) award four Outstanding Senior Awards. This process is never easy given the many excellent and accomplished students in our program. After much deliberation, we have decided that the 2019 Computer Science and Engineering Outstanding Senior Awards go to:

• Computer Engineering Outstanding Senior Award: James Coman
• Computer Engineering SCSPE Award: Wylie Gunn
• Computer Science Outstanding Senior Award: Charissa Pichai
• Computer Information Systems Outstanding Senior Award: Michael Afrin

All awardees will be honored at the University Awards Day ceremony. In addition, Wylie will be honored at a special awards banquet of the South Carolina Society of Professional Engineers.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jason Bakos has received a research award from the Savannah River National Laboratory/DOE for his project titled "Data Analysis, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning".

The University of South Carolina is initiating a search for the Director of the new Artificial Intelligence Institute. The pan- University Institute is expected to draw core or affiliated faculty from almost all colleges. The College of Engineering and Computing is well positioned to support this University-wide Institute and is in the midst of expanding its tenured and tenure-track ranks by over 40 faculty members.

We are honored to report that Dr. Marco Valtorta has been recognized as Senior Member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in recognition of his achievements and long-standing efforts in the field of artificial intelligence and his long-term participation in AAAI. Senior Member status is designed to recognize AAAI members who have achieved significant accomplishments within the field of artificial intelligence.

How can a beloved childhood toy spark a future career in technology for minority students? That’s the question Minorities in Computing (MiC) President Kierra Robinson set out to solve in the group’s recent outreach program with the Norman Arnold Boys and Girls Club in Columbia.

Robinson, a senior computer engineering major, attended a summer engineering camp as a child where she created robots and wrote a code to make them speak. From that moment she wanted to know how computers worked—from the graphics card and memory to the hard drive and CPU. She also knew she wanted a future career in computer engineering.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that I was exposed to technology at a young age, I would never have given a thought about the evolution of a computer and what makes it run,” said Robinson.

Read the full story here. Follow @MiC_UofSc

Applicants from all traditional as well as non-traditional and interdisciplinary areas of Computer Science and Engineering are urged to apply. See below for details:

We are happy to announce that Dr. Qiang Zeng has received a research award from the National Science Foundation for his research project "Collaborative: Enabling Precise and Automated Insecurity Analysis of Middleware on Mobile Platforms". This project aims to develop new architectural designs, algorithms, and techniques for analyzing the security of mobile platforms such as Android phones and tablets.

We are happy to announce that our CyberSecurity@USC team won second place in last weekend's BSides Charleston Capture-the-Flag competition.

We congratulate Dr. Pooyan Jamshidi for receiving a research grant from Carnegie Mellon University/DARPA/DOD for his project on "Online Transfer Learning and Self-Adaptation of Robots". You can learn more about his research.