Exploring Annotator Rationales for Active Learning with Transformers

Filtering data in transformers
12/14/2022 - For decades, natural language processing (NLP) has provided methods for computers to understand language in a way that mimics humans. Since they are built on transformers, complex neural network layers, these large language models' decision making processes are usually incomprehensible to humans and require large amounts of data to be trained properly. In the past, researchers have tried to remedy this by having models explain their decisions by providing rationales, short excerpts of data that contributed most to the label. Read More

Longhorn Startup Venture Acquired in Multimillion Dollar Deal

Longhorn Startup Success Story - Octoshop
11/30/2022 - Longhorn Startup is a unique program at UT Austin where undergraduate students earn real course credit while simultaneously building their own start-up under the mentorship of established entrepreneurs. One such start-up created by UT Computer Science alumni was recently obtained by Ibotta in a multi-million-dollar acquisition deal. Read More

UT Computer Science Mourns the Loss of Professor Dana Ballard

11/14/2022 - It is with great sadness that we inform the scientific community of the passing of an international giant. Dana Ballard passed away on Nov 3rd, 2022, at the age of 76. Read More

UTCS Professor Angela Beasley Wins CNS Teaching Excellence Award

U T C S professor Angela Beasley
11/09/2022 - Each year, the College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award recognizes educators who provide outstanding education focused on research that enriches the experience of students. Read More

Can Robots and Humans Co-Exist in Public? UT Campus Study Will Offer Answers

Autonomous robot going up steps
10/20/2022 - Autonomous robots will soon rove the buildings and streets of The University of Texas at Austin campus. But unlike other commercial delivery services, this fleet of robots will help researchers understand and improve the experience of pedestrians who encounter them. Read More

How SYNERGY Provides a Glimpse Into the Future of Computing Infrastructure Efficiency

Virtualization in cloud computing
09/23/2022 - As the technological world advances, it has become increasingly difficult for the speed of computers to improve. UT Computer Science Professor Dr. Chris Rossbach's research in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) virtualization has made significant strides in the development of a more efficient computing infrastructure. Read More

New Partnership Will Scale Up Investment in Ethical AI Research and Innovation

Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Will Griffin, Mikel Rodriguez and Alice Xiang at the 2022 Good Systems Symposium. Credit: Stacey Ingram Kaleh.

Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Will Griffin, Mikel Rodriguez and Alice Xiang at the 2022 Good Systems Symposium. Credit - Stacey Ingram Kaleh.

08/05/2022 - The University of Texas at Austin and the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to solving problems for a safer world, have formed a partnership that includes accelerating innovative ethical artificial intelligence (AI) research currently underway by interdisciplinary teams of researchers who are part of UT Austin's Good Systems research grand challenge. Read More

How Novel Encryption Methods Are Making a Future of Online Privacy Possible

computer broken in half showing encrypted text
08/04/2022 - Privacy has become increasingly valuable and rare as technology has become more closely integrated with our lives. Private information retrieval (PIR) protocols allow you to retrieve information through an encoded query while also protecting your personal information. Our current security standard online can be viewed as a “no-privacy baseline,” which means the vast majority of our online information retrieval isn’t protected by any of these protocols. Cryptographers like UT Computer Science professor David Wu are building innovative solutions that support this growing preference for online privacy.  Read More

Researchers Aim to Make Computer Networks Easier to Change on the Fly

UT Computer Science Professor Aditya Akella in blue button down shirt in front of limestone wall
08/04/2022 - It's hard to make changes to the software running on a computer network while it's in use—and that can make it harder to respond quickly to a cyberattack. The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant to computer scientists from Rice University, The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington to develop runtime programmable networks that can respond to real-time changes rapidly and without interruption of service. Read More

Aditya Akella and Collaborators Earn Test of Time Award

UT Austin tower clock
06/29/2022 - The ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2010 research paper “Network Traffic Characteristics of Data Centers in the Wild”, written by UT Computer Science Professor Aditya Akella, along with collaborators Theophilus Benson and David A. Read More

Attackers Can Syphon Crypto Keys with Newly Discovered Attack

Photo by alerkiv on Unsplash.
06/20/2022 - Writte by Marc G Airhart | CNS News Read More

UT Programming Team Competes at ICPC North America Championship

On Mon, 30 May 2022, the UT Programming Team competed in the ICPC North America Championship in Orlando, FL, hosted by the University of Central Florida.
06/06/2022 - On Mon, 30 May 2022, the UT Programming Team competed in the ICPC North America Championship (NAC) in Orlando, FL, hosted by the University of Central Florida.   Read More

Inderjit Dhillon Named AAAI Fellow

UT Computer Science Professor Inderjit Dhillon
05/25/2022 - Inderjit Dhillon, Gottesman Family Centennial Professor in Computer Science and a member of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, has been named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Read More

How Soft Capacity Methods and Parallel Deterministic Routability Are Improving Academic Chip Design

black microchip with gold details
05/24/2022 - As chips become larger and more complex, their routing algorithms must also be improved and optimized to face the challenge. Recent UT Computer Science PhD graduate Michael Jiayuan He’s research in computer chip design has made a notable step forward towards more efficient and successful chip design in the academic arena. Read More

How the Intersection of Accessibility and Computer Science Leads to Inclusive Tech

Three people on an orange background. One man using a cain, a woman, and a person in a wheelchair.
05/09/2022 - This semester UT Computer Science welcomed Amy Pavel as a new assistant professor. Pavel's work sits at the intersection of accessibility and computer science. Her research at UT Austin expands on these themes by exploring how people with disabilities as well as those with different situations and preferences interact with emerging forms of media such as virtual reality and augmented reality.  Read More

UT Computer Science Graduate Program Ranked No. 9 Nationally

Number 9 Best Graduate Computer Science Program in the Nation
03/29/2022 - According to U.S. News & World Report’s 2023 "Best Graduate Schools" report, the UT Computer Science graduate program is among the top 10 best graduate programs for computer science in the country, as well as being one of the top 5 among public schools and the best in Texas. Read More

Computer Science Researcher Aims to Automate Software Development

Isil Dillig
03/23/2022 - Isil Dillig is an associate professor of computer science who works to improve the security and reliability of software systems and automatically generate programs from high-level specifications. She received a Sloan Research Fellowship and an NSF CAREER award.  Could you describe your main research interests?  Read More

Professors Greg Durrett and Yuke Zhu Awarded NSF CAREER Awards

Professors Greg Durett and Yuke Zhu
03/10/2022 - The National Science Foundation's CAREER Award celebrates early-career faculty who have demonstrated the potential to serve as academic role models and leaders in the mission of their department or organization. This is an annual award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from which recipients receive a federal grant for research and education activities. Read More

Exploring Methods to Improve the Psychological Wellness of Content Moderators

03/07/2022 - When people think of content moderation, they usually imagine some kind of AI program that automatically monitors social media posts to delete inappropriate content. Though some content moderation is indeed performed by AI, a huge part of it is still done manually by people because moderation remains too difficult and nuanced for AI to perform well. In fact, over 100,000 content moderators work globally today to keep the internet safe for the rest of us.  Read More

AI Bests Expert Human Players at Video Game

race cars rounding corner on race track

A still from the video game Gran Turismo Sport. Credit: Jamie Wynder /Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

02/23/2022 - An artificial intelligence system made history recently by beating a human world champion in Sony's popular video racing game, Gran Turismo Sport. The technological feat, which made the cover of the journal Nature, involved an AI system designed in part by three University of Texas at Austin computer science Ph.D. alumni and professor Peter Stone. Read More

The Importance of Ethics in Computer Science

02/18/2022 - Co-written by Bettina Mateo and Lauren Cotton As society’s reliance on technology increases, computer scientists are now placed at the forefront of new and unique ethical decisions. However, most computer science curriculums don’t require a substantial education in ethics. This can be a troubling thought since a lack of educational discussion on ethical issues can lead scientists to be unaware of the consequences and repercussions of their creations.  Read More

How Block Encodings are Optimizing Phase Estimation

02/10/2022 - In his recent paper, “Faster Coherent Quantum Algorithms for Faster Phase, Energy, and Amplitude Estimation”, UTCS PhD graduate Patrick Rall puts forth novel quantum algorithms for estimating important fundamental qualities of our complex world. Patrick’s approach simplifies the necessary computations compared to the current standard method. Estimation of these properties has applications in condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry as well as machine learning and finance.  Read More

Waters Named ACM Fellow by the Association for Computing Machinery

Brent Waters
01/20/2022 - The Association for Computing Machinery, the primary professional organization in the field of computer science, has named Brent Waters as an ACM Fellow. The award goes only to highly distinguished computer scientists representing the top 1% of ACM members.  Read More

Texas CSB Students Earn President’s Leadership Awards

Benjamin Mathew on left and Chris Wang on right
01/11/2022 - The President’s Leadership Awards were created in 1985 with an endowment from past Texas Exes president Frank Denius. These awards recognize undergraduate students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership within the student community at The University of Texas. One sophomore, two juniors and three seniors receive the award annually. This year, two Texas Honors Computer Science and Business (Texas CSB) are among the recipients. Read More
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