Latest News

Algorithm Uses Online Ads To Identify Human Traffickers

by Aaron Aupperlee | Thursday, April 22, 2021

Ads peddling the victims of human trafficking hide among millions of escort listings online. While identifying similar ads could be the key to taking down a human trafficking organization, the sheer volume of listings — with new ones added each day — makes the task a daunting one for law enforcement.

Mani Revists AI Grand Challenges in New Article

by Aaron Aupperlee | Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Chess turned out to be an easy one. Translating speech in near real-time is mostly done. The accident-avoiding car? Maybe halfway there.

SCS Faculty Awarded Five Grants Through Google's Inaugural Research Scholar Program

by Aaron Aupperlee | Friday, April 9, 2021

Six Carnegie Mellon University faculty members, including five affiliated with the School of Computer Science, received grants through Google's inaugural Research Scholar Program. The program provides up to $60,000 to support the research efforts of early career professors.

SCS Juniors Named Goldwater Recipients

by Aaron Aupperlee | Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Two School of Computer Science students received the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship for 2021.

Arvind Mahankali and Jinhyung Park were among four Carnegie Mellon University students granted the scholarship, which is awarded to sophomores and juniors who show promise as leaders in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics.

Blelloch Receives 2021 Babbage Award

by Aaron Aupperlee | Tuesday, March 30, 2021

The IEEE Computer Society has honored Guy Blelloch with the 2021 Charles Babbage Award for his contributions to parallel programming, parallel algorithms and the interface between them.

Woodruff Earns Award for Teaching Excellence

by Aaron Aupperlee | Monday, March 29, 2021

To adjust to teaching virtually during the pandemic, David Woodruff let his students set the pace. That meant sticking around on Zoom for an extra 20 minutes at the end of lectures. It meant longer office hours — two hours instead of one. And it meant cutting one lecture from his courses to slow the pace.

SCS Grad Student Cracks Mars Rover Code

by Michael Henninger | Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Down here on Earth, nearly 130 million miles from Mars, Adithya Balaji eagerly watched high-definition video of Perseverance and its successful descent onto the red planet. From his desk in Raleigh, North Carolina, Balaji took note of the rover's parachute and its peculiar orange and white pattern. He thought it was likely functional, perhaps for aligning cameras. Within the pattern, however, lay hidden a call for humanity to continue to push out toward the unknown.

SCS Faculty Among Team That Earns MURI Award

by Daniel Tkacik | Monday, March 8, 2021

School of Computer Science faculty members Lujo Bauer and Matt Fredrikson are part of a research team that won a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award.

CMU Remembers Computer Science Visionary Howard Wactlar

by Michael Henninger | Friday, March 5, 2021

Carnegie Mellon University lost a remarkable visionary this week with the death of Howard Wactlar, who pioneered computing on campus for nearly half a century while advancing the nation's research agenda through his work with the federal government.

SCS Names First Assistant Dean for Entrepreneurship Initiatives

by Matthew Wein | Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Katharine "Kit" Needham has been named the School of Computer Science's inaugural assistant dean for entrepreneurship initiatives.

Peet Named Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Experience

by Matthew Wein | Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Veronica Peet has been named the School of Computer Science's first assistant dean for undergraduate experience.

Peet joined SCS nearly two years ago as a senior academic advisor to first-year students, working with Tom Cortina, then the assistant dean for undergraduate education. Her new position emerged from departmental restructuring that saw Cortina elevated to associate dean for undergraduate programs.

CMU Researchers Win NSF-Amazon Fairness in AI Awards

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Three Carnegie Mellon University research teams have received funding through the Program on Fairness in Artificial Intelligence, which the National Science Foundation sponsors in partnership with Amazon. The program supports computational research focused on fairness in AI, with the goal of building trustworthy AI systems that can be deployed to tackle grand challenges facing society.

Workshop Sparks State Initiatives in AI Education

by Byron Spice | Monday, February 8, 2021

A two-day virtual workshop organized by the AI4K12 Initiative involving education leaders from across the country has helped spark new K-12 artificial intelligence efforts in several states, said David Touretzky, research professor in computer science.

SCS Celebrates Simon, Alumni Research Professorships

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Artur Dubrawski will receive the Alumni Research Professorship of Computer Science and Carleton Kingsford will receive the Herbert A. Simon Professorship of Computer Science in a virtual ceremony at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4.

Xinyu Wu Wins Ada Lovelace Fellowship

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Xinyu Wu, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department who studies the theoretical foundations of quantum computing, is one of five recipients of 2021 Ada Lovelace Fellowships, presented by Microsoft Research.

How CyLab researchers are safeguarding digital transactions

CS Faculty Jan Hoffman & PhD Student Ankush Das open-source Nomos

by Daniel Tkacik | Monday, January 25, 2021

In 2013, a Pennsylvania man became the richest person on Earth… for about two minutes. PayPal had accidentally credited his account $92 quadrillion dollars. That’s a 92 with 15 zeros behind it. But within minutes, PayPal realized their mistake, and took it all back. Too bad.

Brothers Complete Long Journey To Doctorates

by Heidi Opdyke | Monday, January 25, 2021

Blum, Forlizzi Named ACM Fellows

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, January 13, 2021

School of Computer Science faculty members Manuel Blum and Jodi Forlizzi are among 95 distinguished computer scientists named 2020 fellows by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

From Video Signals to Bytes: Preserving the Legacy of CS at CMU

by Cristina Rouvalis | Tuesday, January 12, 2021

The image from the videotape is blurry, deteriorated from the passage of time, but the professor is razor-sharp as he talks about the future. Herb Simon stands in front of a class at Carnegie Mellon University, musing about the difference between artificial and natural intelligence.

Fall/Winter 2020

Full Issue

Download the Fall/Winter 2020 issue. (PDF reader required.)

Edmund Clarke Pioneered Methods for Detecting Software, Hardware Errors

CMU Professor Earned Turing Award, Computer Science's Highest Honor

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Edmund M. Clarke, University Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University and co-recipient of the 2007 Turing Award – computer science's equivalent of the Nobel Prize – died Dec. 22 of COVID-19, following a long illness.

CyLab Researchers Design Privacy Icon for Use by California Law

by Daniel Tkacik | Wednesday, December 16, 2020

This past January, you may have noticed the phrase "Do not sell my personal information" at the bottom of many webpages. If you didn't, it could be because there's no icon next to it — even though the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) suggests using one.

After a year without guidance on what that icon should look like, California has proposed an official icon to include with the opt-out text — one developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab and the University of Michigan's School of Information.

The Salad Days of AI

Students Create Digital Green Thumbs To Nurture Vegetables in Automated Greenhouses

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Nidhi Jain has never had much luck growing plants.

"I've tried to work with plants, but they didn't want to work with me," said the senior computer science major from California. "So I've stuck to succulents."

Justine Sherry Wins 2020 VMWare Systems Research Award

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Justine Sherry, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department (CSD), has won the 2020 VMWare Systems Research Award, in recognition of her seminal contributions to the networking field.

VMWare presents the award each year to a faculty member who is within the first five years of their first tenure-track appointment. It includes a $125,000 award to support her research.

SCS Team Wins Most Influential Paper Award at Data Mining Conference

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, December 9, 2020

A 2010 paper by a trio of School of Computer Science researchers that described an algorithm for detecting spammers, faulty equipment, credit card fraud and other anomalous behavior won the Most Influential Paper Award at the 2020 Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD).