Latest News

GeekWire Chooses Pittsburgh for Temporary HQ2

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, December 12, 2017

GeekWire is coming to Pittsburgh — at least for a while.

The Seattle-based technology news hub announced today that it will establish a second, temporary headquarters in Pittsburgh for the month of February. The idea to create a reporting outpost was prompted by the much-publicized Amazon HQ2, with GeekWire placing special emphasis on choosing a city that it considers a strong contender for the Amazon prize.

Garlan Named Associate Dean for Master's Programs

by Byron Spice | Thursday, December 7, 2017

David Garlan, professor of computer science in the Institute for Software Research, has been named associate dean for master's programs in the School of Computer Science.

"We are very lucky to have David in this role because he was one of the original pioneers of master's education within the college, successfully nurturing the Master of Science in Software Engineering to its current status as the gold standard around the world for graduate education in software engineering," said SCS Dean Andrew Moore.

Research Paper on Libratus AI Wins NIPS Best Paper Award

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, December 5, 2017

A research paper describing a key component of Libratus, an artificial intelligence that displayed its poker prowess earlier this year, won one of three best paper awards at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2017) conference this week in Long Beach, Calif.

First-Years Weigh-In on First Semesters

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Wednesday, November 29, 2017

We're racing toward the end of the semester in the School of Computer Science, and now seemed like an opportune time to catch up with a few first-year students. We asked them what kinds of expectations they had coming into SCS, and how their experiences on campus this semester compared to those expectations. Here are their answers, in their own words.

Trevor Arashiro

All Aces: Libratus AI Wins Supercomputing Prize

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Receives Five HPCwire Awards

by Byron Spice | Monday, November 13, 2017

Carnegie Mellon University's Libratus artificial intelligence, which scored an historic victory over four human poker pros earlier this year, has won the HPCwire Reader's Choice Award for Best Use of AI. The award from the supercomputing trade publication was announced at the 2017 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC17) in Denver, Colo.

Ph.D. Women Take Women@SCS to the Next Level

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Monday, November 13, 2017

The School of Computer Science's Ph.D. women are hard at work bringing new and exciting opportunities to Carnegie Mellon's Women @ SCS program. Directed by Carol Frieze, Women @ SCS creates and supports academic, social and professional opportunities for women in computer science. The program includes a wide range of women including undergraduate, master's and Ph.D. students — as well as faculty.

Carnegie Mellon University graduate student awarded Department of Energy fellowship

by Thomas R. O'Donnell | Friday, November 10, 2017

Priya Donti, a doctoral candidate co-advised by Zico Kolter and Inês Azevedo at Carnegie Mellon University, has been awarded a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) to support her Computer Science and Energy Policy research.

"I-Cut-You-Choose" Cake-Cutting Protocol Inspires Solution to Gerrymandering

CMU Researchers Say Fair Redistricting Possible Even With Partisan Maneuvering

by Byron Spice (SCS) and Jocelyn Duffy (MCS) | Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Getting two political parties to equitably draw congressional district boundaries can seem hopeless, but Carnegie Mellon University researchers say the process can be improved by using an approach children use to share a piece of cake.

Just as having one child cut the cake and giving the second child first choice of the pieces avoids either feeling envious, having two political parties sequentially divide up a state in an "I-Cut-You-Freeze" protocol would minimize the practice of gerrymandering, where a dominant political party draws districts to maximize its electoral advantage.

Undergraduate Women Meet Leading Researchers at OurCS Workshop

by Byron Spice | Friday, October 20, 2017

About 100 female computer science majors from across the U.S. and overseas will gather at Carnegie Mellon University this weekend to attend OurCS, a workshop designed to give them hands-on experience with research.

Nancy Amato, Regents Professor and Unocal Professor in computer science and engineering at Texas A& M University, and Alison Derbenwick Miller, vice president of Oracle Academy, will share their insights on computer science research during the three-day event, which begins today.

Eric Zhu Earns Stehlik Scholarship

by Susie Cribbs | Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Carnegie Mellon University senior Eric Zhu technically majors in computer science, but he's a true Renaissance man. He's served two years on CMU's Student Senate, spent a year as a resident assistant, made an effort to take at least one humanities course each semester, participated in CMU Mock Trial and has never abandoned his love of classical piano.

Mason Wins 2018 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award

CMU Professor Is Renowned for Work in Robotic Manipulation

by Byron Spice | Thursday, October 12, 2017

Matthew T. Mason, a researcher renowned for his work in robotic manipulation, has won the 2018 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award — one of the top awards in the field of robotics.

SCS Hosts Computer Science Education Summit

Educators Address Challenges of Burgeoning CS Enrollments

by Byron Spice | Friday, September 29, 2017

The School of Computer Science is bringing together about 80 educators and computer science leaders for a two-day summit to discuss the challenges facing undergraduate computer science programs as enrollments continue to surge.

Hodgins Elected President of SIGGRAPH

by Byron Spice | Monday, September 25, 2017

Jessica Hodgins, professor of computer science and robotics, has been elected president of SIGGRAPH, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.

SIGGRAPH convenes the premier annual conference on computer graphics, which is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals. The SIGGRAPH president serves a three-year term.

Shefali Umrania Earns Computational and Data Science Fellowship

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Monday, September 25, 2017

The Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group on High-Performance Computing (SIGHPC) has named School of Computer Science master's student Shefali Umrania a 2017 ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational and Data Science fellow. She is one of 12 graduate students worldwide to receive the award.

Celebrating Machine Learning for Social Good

Mayor Peduto Joins Uptake CEO To Talk Innovation, Collaboration

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto will sit down with Brad Keywell, Uptake CEO, for a fireside chat about cities as centers of innovation and other issues as Carnegie Mellon University celebrates the launch of the Machine Learning for Social Good fund.

PrivacyStreams Helps Developers Create Privacy Friendly Apps

Decision To Share Personal Data Need Not Be All or Nothing

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, September 13, 2017

A smartphone app that uses the raw feed from a device's microphone or accesses its contact list can raise red flags for a user concerned about privacy. In many cases, however, the app doesn't need all the details that users find most sensitive.

To Improve Smartphone Privacy, Control Access to Third-Party Libraries

Just 30 Libraries Account for More Than Half of Sensitive Data Taps

by Byron Spice | Monday, September 11, 2017

Smartphone apps that share users' locations, contacts and other sensitive information with third parties often do so through a relative handful of services called third-party libraries, suggesting a new strategy for protecting privacy, Carnegie Mellon University researchers say.     

CyLab’s Bryan Parno shares Distinguished Paper Award win with demonstration of verifiable security

by Daniel Tkacik | Thursday, September 7, 2017

Chances are, you’re reading this article on a web browser that uses HTTPS, the protocol over which data is sent between a web browser and the website users are connected to. In fact, nearly half of all web traffic passes through HTTPS. Despite the “S” for security in “HTTPS,” this protocol is far from perfectly secure.

Carnegie Mellon's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship Earns I-Corps Renewal

by Melanie Simko | Monday, August 21, 2017

Carnegie Mellon University's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship recently received a continuing grant from the National Science Foundation for its Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Sites program.

SCS Students Captain Winning Teams at C2C Competition

School of Computer Science students captained teams that finished first and second in the Cambridge2Cambridge (C2C) three-day cybersecurity competition that ended July 27 at the University of Cambridge.

Robert Xiao, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, led the Unstoppables team, which won the £9,000 top prize, and won the £3,000 Leidos C2C Individual award as well. Carolina Zarate, a senior computer science major, captained the CrypticCrushers team, which took the second-place £4500 prize.

Improving Security Science Through Collaboration

by Ann Lyon Ritchie | Thursday, August 3, 2017

Computer scientists need to collaborate with their counterparts in the natural and social sciences to advance cybersecurity research, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

CMU's PPP Team Notches Fourth DefCon Win

by Daniel Tkacik | Monday, July 31, 2017

Carnegie Mellon University’s hacking team, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning or PPP, won its fourth World Series of Hacking title this weekend at the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas.

With four titles under their belt, the team has more wins than any other team in the 21-year history of the international competition. The 10 current members of PPP include eight undergraduates from the School of Computer Science and one Ph.D. student in SCS’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

Carnegie Mellon Method Enables Telescoping Devices That Bend and Twist

Robots That Readily Expand or Shrink Would Be Possible

by Byron Spice | Thursday, July 27, 2017

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found a way to design telescoping structures that can bend and twist, enabling robots of various shapes to collapse themselves for transport or entering tiny spaces, and making possible robotic arms and claws that can reach over or around large obstacles.

Graphics and Robotics Pioneer Receives Highest Honor in Computer Graphics

by Barb Helfer | Tuesday, July 25, 2017

The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (ACM SIGGRAPH) has named Jessica Hodgins, professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, the 2017 recipient of its Steven Anson Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics.

NY Times Examines How SCS Remade Pittsburgh

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, July 25, 2017

What do Pittsburgh's "food boom," the establishment of Uber's Advanced Technologies Center and the return of Jean Yang to her hometown have in common? The School of Computer Science, says writer Steven Kurutz in the July 23 edition of The New York Times.