04/19/2017 - Chidambaram stresses the importance of why operating systems are so awe-inspiring. “An operating system is what makes computers run. If you are able to work with an operating system, you can get computers to do pretty much whatever you want,” Chidambaram says. “If you are able to work with operating systems, you essentially become a wizard in CS.”
04/06/2017 - In 1960, the physicist Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” in which he explored the question of why mathematics is so remarkably useful in the natural sciences.
04/05/2017 - UTCS Assistant Professor Scott Niekum has known he wanted to study artificial intelligence since he was 19 years old. As an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University, he rode the bus an hour each way to get to his internship. To pass the time, he read Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach, a book that explores, among other topics, artificial intelligence and the emergence of consciousness.
03/16/2017 - Dana Moshkovitz earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Israel while most people her age were filling out their college applications—at the age of 17. She continued her education at Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Princeton, collecting computer science degrees at each and a postdoc at the latter. She has previously worked at MIT where she won a teaching award for her course on the design and analysis of algorithms.
03/03/2017 - From The Daily Texan— “The (computer science) department as a whole produces a lot of local talent in students, who are trained with a really good education, and that’s what’s powering the local tech economy,” Porter said.
02/16/2017 - Philipp Krähenbühl teaches computers how to see. Krähenbühl, an assistant professor who joined UTCS last fall, studies a subfield of machine learning called computer vision. By using machine learning techniques, such as deep networks, computers can learn how to differentiate between and manipulate images by running through a large data set of labeled images. "One of the biggest issues there is that the amount of data you need to teach the computer about even tiny little things is enormous," he said.
02/10/2017 - At its annual meeting today, the Austin Chamber of Commerce recognized the chair of the Department of Computer Science for his outstanding contributions toward improving the local technology sector. In naming Porter Economic Development Volunteer of the Year, organizers said he had been "very instrumental in helping grow our technology community" through many years' partnership. As department chair, Porter often meets with companies and investors who are learning about Austin.
01/26/2017 - President Fenves recently announced UT Computer Science Lecturer Alison Norman as a recipient of the 2016-17 President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award. Alison’s many contributions include her inspired teaching of CS439 and her leadership in helping recruit and retain women in computer science. This award, established in the fall of 1980, recognizes the consistent level of excellence that Alison has achieved in teaching undergraduates within the Department of Computer Science.
12/15/2016 - Professor Risto Miikkulainen has won the 2017 Gabor Award from the International Neural Network Society (INNS), which recognizes the achievements of highly accomplished researchers in engineering applications of neural networks. Risto is on the forefront of neuroevolution—the evolution of neural networks using genetic algorithms.
12/12/2016 - On January 25, 2017, UTCS faculty (and spouses) Robert van de Geijn and Maggie Myers will kick off the fifth run of their 16 week MOOCs (Massively Open Online Course) on linear algebra from a computer science perspective called Linear Algebra - Foundations to Frontiers (LAFF) Robert and Maggie have enhanced the course by working with MathWorks to enable participants to use Matlab freely during the course.