My Computer Science & Engineering Department

At the AI Institute of the University of South Carolina, my colleagues and I have processed more than 700 million social media posts since the beginning of March and more than 700,000 news articles about the COVID-19 pandemic. We are monitoring these information sources to capture the evolving human experience in the U.S. during the pandemic. We have found troubling indications of a growing mental health crisis and an increase in social ills such as substance abuse and gender-based violence.

From "We’re measuring online conversation to track the social and mental health issues surfacing during the coronavirus pandemic" by Dr. Sheth.

This year the students in the Senior Capstone course developed 35 apps either for industrial clients, for USC members, or for themselves. There were:

• 14 web applications using technologies such as Django, node, express, Angular, react, .NET, dialogflow, firebase, AWS, Unity.
• 19 mobile apps (17 run on Android, and 2 on iOS) using iOnic, react native, flutter, firebase, augmented reality.
• 2 desktop games built with Unity

You can watch video demonstrations and see screenshots of all the apps right now!

If you are interested in having students build an app for you, note that we are looking for clients for next year.

Dr. Chin-Tser Huang provides expert opinon on cybersecurity issues in an article on USA Today: Could the NFL draft be hacked? Virtual draft poses new cybersecurity challenges, also on cbs sports.

We proudly report that Kevin Gagnon has received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award. This honor recognizes college students of noble character who have acted as humble servants to others by putting service of others before self-interest. The award is presented each year by more than 70 colleges and universities within the American South. At the University of South Carolina, the award is presented each year to the most outstanding senior female and senior male student. You can learn more about Kevin here and here.

Our graduate students are busy organizing workshops. Ugur Kursuncu is the contact organizer for CySoc2020: International Workshop on Cyber Social Threat, and Manas Gaur is in the contact organizing committee for KiML2020: International Workshop on Knowledge-infused Mining and Learning.

The deadline to apply for the CSE Department’s John H. Fain Scholarship has been extended to June 1. This scholarship is for upper division Computer Information Systems (CIS) and Computer Science (CS) majors planning to become entrepreneurs. Interested applicants must thoroughly read criteria for the award; if they meet the initial criteria, then they must complete and submit the John H. Fain Scholarship Application by June 1. View criteria and application here

Hunter Damron, a junior in CS, has received an honorable mention for the Computer Research Association’s 2020 Undergraduate Researcher Award. Read the full story here.

Dr. Jason Bakos has received a research award from the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL)/DOE for his project titled "A Unified Machine Learning Framework for Corrosion Surveillance and Quality Control in Additive Manufacturing."

We are proud to announce that Dr. Ioannis Rekleitis has received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his project titled "Enabling Autonomy via Enhanced Situational Awareness for Underwater Robotics". This is the NSF's most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. See also a more detailed article about this.

Click below to see more photos from our Faculty and Graduate Student Appreciation Breakfast held on Valentine’s Day.