Latest News

CSD Faculty Earns Google Research Scholar Award

by Adam Kohlhaas | Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Aditi Raghunathan, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department, received the award to support the project "Robust Fine-Tuning of Foundation Models." She is one of six researchers in the School of Computer Science to receive a 2024 Google Research Scholar Award.

Her research will develop principled methods that appropriately constrain the fine-tuning process to maximally preserve pretrained knowledge and improve downstream robustness.

SCS Ph.D. Student Earns Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship

Kaiyang Zhao, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department (CSD), was selected for the North American Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship.

Zhao's project, "Learned Virtual Memory for Heterogeneous Architectures," aims to radically rethink virtual memory using lightweight machine learning models to solve challenges in data centers and at the edge.

SCS Faculty Receive Endowed Professorships

by Marylee Williams | Thursday, May 9, 2024

CSD faculty members Chris Donahue and Guy Blelloch are among four School of Computer Science professors who recently received endowed faculty chairs to recognize and support their work and research.

Donahue received the Dannenberg Career Development Professorship. Blelloch was one of two recipients of the U.A. and Helen Whitaker Professorships of Computer Science.

CSD Researchers Earn Community Award for Cache-Efficiency Research

Rashmi Vinayak, Juncheng Yang Among Paper's Authors

by Marylee Williams | Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department won the Community Award at the 2024 USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI) for work on a new cache-eviction algorithm.

The Community Award is given to the best paper where the code, dataset or a combination of both are made publicly available.

Blelloch Named University Professor

Guy Blelloch has been elevated to the rank of University Professor, the highest distinction a faculty member can receive at Carnegie Mellon University.

University Professors are distinguished by international recognition and for their contributions to education, arts and research. They have made exceptional achievements beyond their department and college and embody the highest standards of the university.

Searching for the Limits of Local Error Correction

The Key to Better Algorithms Is Making the Math Work

by Charlotte Hu | Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Information can be finicky, especially if it has to travel. Whether you're making a phone call over a wireless network, playing music from a CD, or saving a document to a hard drive, when you transform or transmit information from one location to another, it has to go through many channels.

Peter Manohar, a Ph.D. student in CMU's Computer Science Department, worked with former assistant professor Pravesh Kothari to develop ways to improve error-correction algorithms by breaking apart the math behind them.

Lenore Blum Elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

by Aaron Aupperlee | Friday, April 26, 2024

Lenore Blum, a foundational researcher in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and a tireless advocate for women in math and science, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Blum, who retired from CMU in 2019, was a professor in the Computer Science Department, the founding director of Project Olympus, and co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

SCS Student Awarded Goldwater Scholarship

by Marylee Williams | Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Claire Jin wants to improve how generative artificial intelligence is incorporated into robotics.

The third-year student in the School of Computer Science was selected as one of CMU's three 2024 Goldwater Scholars, one of the most prestigious STEM scholarships for undergraduates. This award comes from the federally endowed Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.

Behring Foundation Gift Supports International Undergrads in Tech

by Kayla Papakie and Krista Burns | Thursday, April 11, 2024

The Behring Foundation, a Brazilian-based family organization focused on empowering talented youth and promoting social development, has established a scholarship to support students from Brazil pursuing tech-related undergraduate degrees at Carnegie Mellon University.

The foundation's gift is the first of its kind at CMU, helping to fill a financial aid gap for international undergraduates who may not have as much access to funding opportunities as domestic students.

CMU Researchers Help Expand Music Generation With Adobe

by Marylee Williams | Thursday, April 11, 2024

Shih-Lun Wu is an avid classical piano and viola player, but he learned viola because all the violin seats in his school orchestra had been taken. Now a student in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, Wu uses generative AI and machine learning to make music creation more accessible and engaging for people of all abilities.

Four SCS Faculty Named 2024 Sloan Research Fellows

by Aaron Aupperlee | Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Four faculty members in Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science will receive Sloan Research Fellowships in 2024.

Nathan Beckmann, Aaditya Ramdas, Justine Sherry and Virginia Smith were among the 126 early career researchers announced as fellows. More than a thousand researchers are nominated each year, and winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship that can be used to advance their research.

Kanade Receives BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Computer Vision Legacy

by Aaron Aupperlee | Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Carnegie Mellon University's Takeo Kanade received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his decades of pioneering scientific achievements in computer vision and robotic perception.

Kanade, a Founders University Professor in the School of Computer Science's Robotics Institute and Computer Science Department, devised the foundational algorithms that underlie computer vision.

Four SCS Faculty Named 2023 ACM Fellows

by Aaron Aupperlee | Wednesday, January 24, 2024

School of Computer Science faculty members Maria Florina Balcan, Roger B. Dannenberg, Ken Koedinger and Elaine Shi have been recognized as 2023 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The distinction, reserved for the top 1% of the association's membership, honors recipients' outstanding work in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

Miller Awarded NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship

by Aaron Aupperlee | Thursday, January 11, 2024

Bailey Miller, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department, has been selected for a NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship.

"Our fellowship recipients are among the most talented graduate students in the world," said NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally. "They're working on some of the most important problems in computer science, and we're delighted to support their research."

Researchers Design Simple, High-Performing Cache Eviction Algorithm

by Aaron Aupperlee | Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department (CSD) have designed a method to more efficiently and effectively kick unnecessary items out of the cache, improving the performance of software, servers and websites that rely on cached items.

Wilson Earns 2023 Krulcik Scholarship

by Kayla Papakie | Thursday, November 30, 2023

School of Computer Science senior Rachel Wilson's favorite thing about Carnegie Mellon University is being immersed in a community of people who are incredibly passionate about their work. She'd even argue she's learned as much outside the classroom as she has inside.

Yang, Thontakudi Earn 2023 Stehlik Scholarship

by Susie Cribbs | Friday, November 17, 2023

School of Computer Science senior Helena Yang and recent graduate Anjali Thontakudi (SCS 2023) don't think they've met, but they have lots in common. Both women served as teaching assistants (TAs) for 15-112: Introduction to Computer Programming. They both experienced an education interrupted by a global pandemic and rose to the resulting challenges. Both have an artistic side they indulged at Carnegie Mellon University, even taking similar-but-different classes in storytelling.

CMU Honors Rep. Mike Doyle's Legacy With Endowed Fellowship

by Jean Hayes | Thursday, October 19, 2023

In recognition of former U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle's 28 years of public service representing the greater Pittsburgh region, Carnegie Mellon University announced it would establish the Mike Doyle Endowed Fellowship in Technology and Policy.

Zhu Named 2023 Packard Fellow for Work With Generative AI

by Aaron Aupperlee | Monday, October 16, 2023

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has named Jun-Yan Zhu, an assistant professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, a 2023 Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering.

Five SCS Students Named 2024 Siebel Scholars

by Aaron Aupperlee | Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Five graduate students in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science have been named Siebel Scholars for 2024. Lea Albaugh, Bailey Flanigan, Maxwell Jones, Paul Pu Liang and Shih-Lun Wu will each receive $35,000 as part of the program.

Founded in 2000 by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, the Siebel Scholars program recognizes nearly 100 students each year whose work influences the technologies, policies, and economic and social decisions that shape the future.

Summer Awards Roundup

CSD faculty and students win awards, grants, and recognition every day. Here's a look at recent awards we know about through Summer 2023. 

Diya Dinesh, a sophomore computer science and robotics major, was a finalist for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Program’s NCWIT Collegiate Award.

AI Major Wins Automated Medical Diagnosis Challenge

by Aaron Aupperlee | Thursday, September 7, 2023

Dongkyun Kim, a junior artificial intelligence major in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, designed the winning deep learning model in a recent competition to accurately classify diseases based on chest X-rays.

CSD Researchers Develop System That Dramatically Speeds Up Server Communication

by Aaron Aupperlee | Thursday, August 17, 2023

Carnegie Mellon University researchers in the School of Computer Science collaborated with colleagues at Intel, Microsoft and New York University to develop a new system for internet servers that changes how CPUs communicate with network interface cards. The system, called Ensō, increases the rate at which servers can service requests by up to 600%.

CMU Hacking Team Wins Seventh DEF CON Capture the Flag Title

by Ryan Noone | Wednesday, August 16, 2023

The winningest team in DEF CON's Capture the Flag (CTF) competition history, Carnegie Mellon University's Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP), was back at it again as the team recently defended its title, earning its seventh victory in the past 11 years.

Obituary: SCS Mourns Loss of Computer Visionary, Entrepreneur Edward Fredkin

by Matthew Wein | Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Fifty years ago, few people, if any, could possibly have foreseen the way artificial intelligence would grip our imaginations and consume the public discourse. But if anyone did, it was probably Edward Fredkin.

Fredkin, one of the most influential computer science theorists and thinkers of his generation who spent part of his career as a distinguished career professor at Carnegie Mellon University, died June 13 in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was 88.