My Computer Science and Engineering Department

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:

Applicants are expected to:

• Possess a Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or a closely-related field, by the beginning date of employment and a demonstrated record of research accomplishments.
• Demonstrate evidence of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through research, teaching, and/or service efforts.
• Develop internationally-recognized, externally-funded research programs that:
  • Complement existing departmental strengths
  • Leverage exceptional interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities
  • Align with vital cross-cutting research themes identified by the college, including smart & connected communities, transformative computing, healthcare transformations, and agile manufacturing

Dates & Details

Review of applications will begin on December 1, 2018 and continue until positions are filled. Expected start date is August 16, 2019.

Application Requirements

Interested applicants should apply online at: uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/43854

• Letter of intent
• Curriculum vitae
• Concise description of research plans
• Teaching plan
• Names & contact information of 3-5 references.

Our Department

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering offers B.S. degrees in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, and Computer Engineering; M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering; M.S. degrees in Software Engineering and Information Security; and a Graduate Certificate in Cyber Security Studies. The department has 23 full-time faculty members (10 of whom are NSF CAREER Award recipients), an undergraduate enrollment of 935 students, and a graduate enrollment of 161 students. The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, protected veteran status or genetics.

Research areas of special interest include:

• Human in the loop or knowledge-enhanced AI, deep learning, natural language processing, question-answering/conversational AI, brain-inspired computing, semantic/cognitive/perceptual computing
• Big data, including social, sensor, biological and health and scalable computing/ analysis of big data
• Computer vision, robotics, and human computer interaction, including personal digital/assistive technology
• Cyber-physical systems and Internet of Things
• Software analysis and testing, adaptive and autonomous systems, and search-based software engineering
• Next-generation networking, cybersecurity, and privacy

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. Project abstract:

During the past decade, middleware on mobile platforms (such as the Application Framework in Android and the Core Services layer in iOS) has been flourishing, but the insecurity analysis of such middleware has been lagging behind. For example, while comprehensive studies have been conducted at the application layer of the Android system, there is very limited work analyzing the Android Application Framework (Android Framework, for short), a middleware layer in the Android system. The two billion Android mobile devices and the many Android Things devices all rely on the system services provided by Android Framework. Recently, many vulnerabilities of Android Framework are exposed, showing that Android Framework is vulnerable and exploitable. Given the critical role of Android Framework, a vulnerability in the framework can be exploited to launch large-scale cyber attacks and cause serious harms to user security and privacy. However, the insecurity analysis of Android Framework has been rather ad hoc, imprecise, and requires much manual effort, mainly because there is a severe lack of techniques and tools developed for insecurity analysis of such middleware on mobile platforms (MoMP). This research project seeks to fill the gap by developing new techniques and tools for insecurity analysis of MoMP like Android Framework and consequently lead to more secure and trustworthy computing environments for the huge number of smartphone and Internet-of-Things (IoT) device users. Educational resources developed in this project, including course modules on mobile computing security and vulnerability discovery, will be disseminated through a dedicated web site. Collaborations with the industry will be sought to transfer the technology to interested software companies and government entities that perform insecurity analysis of MoMP.
The project will develop new architectural designs, algorithms and techniques for precise and automated insecurity analysis of MoMP. To make the research concrete, demonstrations will be created for the Android Framework for mobile smartphones, tablets and IoT devices, and the first platform for precise and automated insecurity analysis of Android Framework will be built, combining current software analysis techniques, such as symbolic execution, hybrid dynamic/static analysis, and cross-process and cross-layer software analysis, to make them capable of analyzing complex and large-sized MoMP like Android Framework. The platform will be evaluated and applied to discovering various types of zero-day vulnerabilities and generating proof-of-concept exploits.

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.

We would like to give well-deserved congratulations to the ACM Student team for winning 1st and 2nd place at the International Collegiate Programming Contest regionals held in the College of Charleston. The ICPC contest is sponsored by ACM National. It is an algorithmic programming contest similar to the code-a-thons our student chapter hosts, but with more difficult questions and much broader turnout.

We are proud to announce that Dr. Srihari Nelakuditi has been named an ACM Distinguished Member by the Association for Computing Machinery. The award recognizes ACM members who have achieved significant accomplishments or have made a significant impact on the computing field. The 2018 ACM Distinguished Members are exemplars for their peers, and represent ACM’s worldwide geographic reach, as well as the exciting range of subdisciplines that constitute today’s technology landscape.

Dr. Jijun Tang and Dr. Chin-Tser Huang and their collaborator Seung Jang, have received a research award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for their project "Evolution in Digital Discourse: Toward a Computational Tool for Identifying Patterns of Language Change in Social Media".

Dr. Farkas leads the "Unified, Cloud-Based Platform to Support South Carolina Logistics" project. Funded by the Department of Commerce of South Carolina, the project brings together experts from the University of South Carolina, Fraunhofer USA, and Datos Consulting. The project's focus is to develop innovative technologies to benefit the logistics sector of SC using state-of-the art research in data science and data security & provenance.

If interested, checkout Women in Computing @USC group.

Some of our students attended the Kaspersky Hackathon which was hosted by Clemson in September 8. USC had 2 teams who took 2nd and 3rd place. Excellent work! Clay and Ronni were the trainers for the team. If you are interested, drop by the CyberSecurity@USC group. 

Dr. Lannan (Lisa) Luo has received an NSF award for her project "Enabling Precise and Automated Insecurity Analysis of Middleware on Mobile Platforms" which studies ways to improve the security of mobile platforms, like Android phones. From the abstract:

This project will develop new architectural designs, algorithms and techniques for precise and automated insecurity analysis of MoMP. To make the research concrete, demonstrations will be created for the Android Framework for mobile smartphones, tablets and IoT devices, and the first platform for precise and automated insecurity analysis of Android Framework will be built, combining current software analysis techniques, such as symbolic execution, hybrid dynamic/static analysis, and cross-process and cross-layer software analysis, to make them capable of analyzing complex and large-sized MoMP like Android Framework. The platform will be evaluated and applied to discovering various types of zero-day vulnerabilities and generating proof-of-concept exploits.

We are happy to welcome Dr. Qiang Zeng to the department. He received his PhD in Computer Science & Engineering from Penn State University and most recently was an Assistant Professor at Temple University. His main research interest is Software and Systems Security, with a focus on Internet of Things and Mobile Computing. He also works on the security aspect of machine learning. He is currently teaching CSCE 311 and is looking for students interested in Cybersecurity.

We are are happy to welcome Dr. Sanjib Sur to the Department. Dr. Sur received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research interests are in the areas of Wireless Systems and Architectures, Millimeter-wave Communications and Networks, Internet of Things Connectivity and Sensing Systems. He is currently teaching a class on Millimeter-Wave Networking and Applications and is looking for students to join his research group.

We are happy to welcome Dr. Pooyan Jamshidi to the Department. Dr. Jamshidi received his PhD in Computing at Dublin City University in Ireland and most recently was a Postdoctoral Associate at Carnegie Mellon University. His research goal is to advance a scientific, principled understanding of machine learning systems. He is teaching Machine Learning Systems this semester. You can visit his website to learn more about his research.

We are proud to announce that Eduardo Romero has been awarded a GEM National Consortium Fellowship. The GEM program seeks to enhance the value of the nation’s human capital by increasing the participation of underrepresented groups at the master’s and doctoral levels in engineering and science. The fellowship, in conjunction with the GEM graduate institution and GEM employer, provides a stipend, full tuition and fees, and a paid summer internship. Romero graduated Summa Cum Laude this May from the South Carolina Honors College with a major in Computer Science and minor in Mathematics. A 2017 Hispanic Scholarship Fund recipient, Eduardo was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Honors Society of Collegiate Scholars. His GEM internship will be at Adobe Systems Incorporated, where he will work to use Deep Learning algorithms for image classification to provide new tools to the analysts of Adobe’s Target team. Eduardo plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Ohio State University and then a career in private sector research.