My Computer Science & Engineering Department

Laura Boccanfuso, one of our graduate students, is featured on this WISTV news story along with her robot Charlie:

Prof. Jijun Tang and colleagues at MUSC have received a grant from the NSF for their collaborative research on "Developing a 3D Browser to Explore Genomes". This project builds upon the success of the Genome3D and leverages recent findings on complex spatial genomic models. Exploring genomes through 3D visualization will significantly advance genome research in integrating epigenomic data, studying long range inter- and intra-chromosome interaction, and analyzing structural features of genetic variations. Check it out on the video below.

Together with Prof. David Miller from the Center for Digital Humanities, Prof. Song Wang has been awarded a research grant from National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for their project "PARAGON: Intelligent Digital Collation and Difference Detection." In this project, they will develop new image processing algorithms and open-source software to automate the detailed comparison of scanned images captured under varying circumstances, whether scanned, camera-taken from different heights or angles, rotated, differently lighted, or even slightly warped. This research will substantially reduce the intensive labor that is currently required in the study of print materials and facilitate the digitalization of rare and fragile historical documents.

The USC News has an article on the Center for Digital Humanities that mentions this research.

We are pleased to announce that Mr. Nicholas Stiffler, a graduate student in Computer Science and Engineering, has won the 2012 Palmetto Pillar Award in the category of Student Achievement. This is a statewide award that is given annually by the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and the Information Technology Council (ITC) and honors the best and brightest of the Midlands technology community. Congratulations!

We are happy to welcome Dr. Matt E. Thatcher our newest Professor. He comes here from the University of Lousville where he was a Professor of Computer Information Systems. Before that, he was an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in Information Systems at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in IT value, software patent policy design, IT offshoring, and the social costs of information privacy.

His office is in Swearingen 3A58 and he will be teaching 190: Computing in the Modern World and 390: Professional Issues in Computer Science and Engineering this Fall.

Our Computational Biology Research lab, headed by Dr. Valafar, has received two separate research grants for continued support of their work. The first one is for their ongoing project on the "South Carolina IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE)", funded by National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)/NIH. The second award comes to Dr. Stephanie Irausquin, a Research Scientist in the lab, in the form of a National Science Foundation fellowship for her project titled "A Novel RDC Analysis Pipeline for Determination of Protein Structure and Dynamics."

52apps is a new company formed by some of our students that is building one new app every week based on users' ideas. They appeared on the local news tonight. Check our their homepage every week to see what new app they built this week, and lend them your support.

Dr. Jason Bakos has received a grant from the state EPSCoR office under their Scientific Advocate Network for the purchase of equipment, like the device shown here, to support his research on Power Efficiency Instrumentation for DSP-Based Supercomputing.

Our objective is to construct a general-purpose heterogeneous parallel computer comprised mostly of these DSPs, and to develop the runtime libraries necessary for them to execute existing scientific codes. This would allow for field portable teraflop-class parallel computers without the need to rewrite application software.

We would like to welcome Dr. Gabriel Terejanu who has joined the department as an assistant professor. He comes to us from the University of Texas, Austin where he was a postdoctoral researcher working on Bayesian model validation in the Center for Predictive Engineering and Computational Sciences (PECOS). His research interests are in the area of uncertainty quantification, information fusion, and decision making under uncertainty.

He has already moved into office 3A50 and will be teaching CSCE 758: Probabilistic System Analysis in the Fall.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering has selected the following students for CSE's 2012 Outstanding Senior Awards:

• USC Outstanding Senior in Computer Engineering: Dustin Brown
• USC Outstanding Senior in Computer Science: Garret Debruin
• USC Outstanding Senior in Computer Information Systems: Martin Nenov
• The South Carolina Society of Professional Engineering (SC SPE) Outstanding Senior in Computer Engineering: Daniel DeCola.
• The Gintz Award: Eric Randall

Also, this year the following undergraduate students received scholarship awards.

Jonathan Kilby, senior, Computer Engineering: Bridging Scholarship, for a semester or a year of study in Japan. Also, a Freeman-ASIA grant, for undergraduates to study in East and Southeast Asia. Also, a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, for undergraduates to study abroad.

John Lem, Junior, Computer Science. Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, for undergraduates to study abroad.

Brandon Washington, Freshman, Computer Science. Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, for undergraduates to study abroad.

Congratulations to all of you!