My Computer Science and Engineering Department

"AI researchers like me are now turning our efforts toward developing AI algorithms that can explain themselves in a manner that humans can understand. If we can do this, I believe that AI will be able to uncover and teach people new facts about the world that have not yet been discovered, leading to new innovations." Read the full article at The Conversation, written by Dr. Agostinelli.

Dr. Amit Sheth has been named one of the 2020 ACM Fellows. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community. Fellows are nominated by their peers, with nominations reviewed by a distinguished selection committee.

More information at the ACM Fellows website. See also Sheth named a Fellow by the Association for Computing Machinery.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Lannan (Lisa) Luo was awarded the College of Engineering and Computing Young Investigator Research Award. This award is provided annually to an untenured, assistant professor in recognition of her dedication and contributions to the research objectives of the College of Engineering and Computing.

The 2020 CSE departmental awards are based on evidence from CY2019 Annual Evaluations and data provided by the college. They are:

Junior Researcher (Assistant or Associate Professor) Award: Pooyan Jamshidi

Senior Researcher (Full Professor) Award: Amit Sheth

Undergraduate Teaching Award: Jose Vidal

Graduate Teaching Award: Song Wang

Service Award: Jason O’Kane

Most Valuable Professor (MVP) Award: Csilla Farkas

Pooyan Jamshidi had an excellent year with a strong combination of research expenditures, new research awards, new funding proposals, and refereed publications.

Amit Sheth also had an excellent year as he continued to build the AI Institute; he had an excellent combination of research expenditures, new research awards, new funding proposals, and refereed publications – all of which were among the highest in the department.

Jose Vidal continues to make substantial and invaluable contributions in undergraduate teaching – including teaching our huge capstone courses, leading the Undergraduate Committee, handling undergraduate student requests (e.g., overrides, course substitutions, prereq waivers), and contributing to the department’s ongoing ABET efforts.

Song Wang receives excellent teaching evaluations for his graduate-level courses. He also manages a large research group (~10 Ph.D. students) and spends a lot of time and effort leading that group. He has also graduated several doctoral students.

Jason O'Kane has served so many critical service roles for the Department over the last few years including service as the CSE Associate Chair of Academics and as a junior faculty mentor; participation on the CSE Graduate Committee, CSE Qualifying Exam Committee, and CSE Assessment Committee; and representation of UofSC CSE at the Computing@SEC workshop. At the university level, he served as a member of the Carolina Judicial Council and as a Carolina Scholar mentor. Jason has done this and much more in support of the Department, College, and University.

Csilla Farkas has contributed substantially to all fronts – research, teaching, and service. She has a strong research record with substantial research expenditures and many refereed publications. She teaches critical cybersecurity courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels with excellent course and instructor ratings. She also recently graduated 3.5 Ph.D. students (that is, she was the co-advisor of one student). Of course, Csilla’s service to the department, college, and university continues to be stellar.

Hark worked in the Office of Student Conduct after finishing his undergraduate degree in computer science in 2002. It was during this time that he saw a need for a better way of record keeping and data management. Shortly after leaving the office, Hark founded Maxient with his wife Candice. Hark said the couple didn’t know it at the time, but the company would soon grow to serve more than 1,000 colleges and universities by providing conduct management software for student discipline, academic integrity, care and concern records, Title IX matters and more. Read the full story here.

From A new data-driven model shows that wearing masks saves lives – and the earlier you start, the better.

Dr. Biplav Srivastava, professor of computer science at the University of South Carolina, and his team have developed a data-driven tool that helps demonstrate the effect of wearing masks on COVID-19 cases and deaths. His model utilizes a variety of data sources to create alternate scenarios that can tell us “What could have happened?” if a county in the U.S. had a higher or lower rate of mask adherence. In this interview, he explains how the model works, its limitations and what conclusions we can draw from it.

Jason Bakos of the College of Engineering and Computing has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to design processors capable of real-time machine learning of the behavior and response of high-rate dynamic systems. This study is expected to produce technology that will improve the reaction time of high-energy systems such as ballistics, airbag deployment and high-speed vehicle control. Read the full article here.

As NASA and other space exploration organizations continue sending spacecraft missions to the outer solar system, they don’t have time to wait for technology to keep up. That’s where Pooyan Jamshidi and his collaborative team come in. Read the rest of the article here.

Homay Valafar just does not get it. When he brings his car to the mechanic’s shop for a tune-up, it receives unique, detailed care based off its individual make, year and model. But, when he goes to the doctor’s office, he is given generic care that doesn’t take into account his unique medical history and one-of-a-kind genetic make-up. Read the rest of the article here.

Scott Craig, a Purple Heart recipient, will earn his degree in computer science from the College of Engineering and Computing. You can read the UofSC News profile of him and other veterans.

I have seen a lot of people flock to data science fields in recent years, regardless of their background. Data science involves the ability to acquire and clean data, draw insights using a variety of techniques and communicate them to decision makers in their unique context of other actors, data sources, and decision choices. See full article here.

Dr. Amit Sheth will be awarded the IEEE TCSVC Research Innovation Award 2020 in “recognition of his pioneering and enduring research, applications and adoption of distributed workflow processes and semantics in services computing.” According to the award site, this award “recognizes one individual or one group of collaborators whose outstanding technical innovations in the field of services computing have had a lasting impact in advancing the theory and practice in the field. The contributions must have significantly influenced the direction of research and development of the field or transferred to practice in significant and innovative ways and/or enabled the development of commercial systems/products…”. Amit will accept this award at a virtual Awards Ceremony on October 23 during the Services Computing Congress 2020 event. Congratulations, Amit, for this well-deserved honor!

Dr. Chin-Tser Huang has received a research award from Clemson University/USDOT for his project titled "Modeling Impact of Weather Conditions on 5G Communication and Mitigation Measures on Control of Automated Intersections".

Dr. Pooyan Jamshidi has received a resarch award from the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) for his project titled "Resource Adaptive Software Purpose-Built for Extraordinary Robotic Research Yields". More information about this collaborative project can be found here.

Dr. Csilla Farkas has received a research award from the National Security Agency (NSA) for her project "Context-Aware Data Security for the Internet of Things (IoT)". This is part of a joint research project with The Citadel.

Dr. Yiannis Rekleitis (PI) and Dr. Srihari Nelakuditi (Co-PI) have received a research award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their project titled "Cooperative Underwater Structure Inspection and Mapping".You can view the full abstract.