Professor Vijay Chidambaram Creates Free Resource for Aspiring Computer Science Professors

Professor Vijay Chidambaram leaning against the GDC stairway smiling. A slanted orange overlay with text reads, 'The CS Assistant Professor Handbook: Essential know-how for new and aspiring computer science professors by Vijay Chidambaram'
11/15/2023 - Academia can be opaque from the outside to folks who wonder what being a professor is like. This can be a hurdle for aspiring graduate students, who are interested in the role, but are anxious about all the different things that are required as a professor. Vijay Chidambaram, Professor of Computer Science at UT Austin, has authored a book, "The CS Assistant Professor Handbook: Essential know-how for new and aspiring computer science professors", to tackle this challenge. Read More

Unlocking the Power of Bilevel Optimization: BOME

A night view of a city scene with multiple highway overpasses overlapping.
11/08/2023 - In mathematical optimization, a new approach is emerging, promising to transform how we tackle intricate challenges across various domains. Consider the complexity of bilevel optimization, a problem that has confounded experts in machine learning, engineering, and other fields. Recent advances are providing new insights into this intricate landscape, presenting a streamlined technique that has the potential to significantly enhance our ability to navigate these complex problems.  Read More

The Role of Domain-Specific Pretraining in Digital Discourse Analysis

11/02/2023 - Smriti Singh spends a lot of time on social media. But, not in the way most students do.  Read More

Celebrating 20 Years of Turing Scholars

Professor Calvin Lin with current Turing Scholars Honors students in fall 2023

Professor Calvin Lin, Director of the Turing Scholars Honors Program, with current Turing Scholars (Fall 2023).

10/26/2023 - This year, the Department of Computer Science is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Turing Scholars Honors Program, a milestone that recognizes the many talented students the program has seen since its inception. Over the years, the program has established itself as one of the premier computer science honors programs in the country, leaving a lasting impact on its graduates’ academic and professional journeys. Read More

Keshav Pingali Receives ACM-IEEE Ken Kennedy Award for High Performance and Parallel Computing

UT Computer Science Professor Keshav Pingali in front of the Gates Dell Complex at The University of Texas at Austin
10/04/2023 - It’s 4 a.m. in Italy. Jet lagged before a conference, Keshav Pingali, professor of Computer Science and core faculty member at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, found himself unable to sleep. His response to this restlessness will feel familiar to many a reader: he opened his laptop to check his email. Read More

Simon Lam Inducted into Internet Hall of Fame

UT Computer Science Professor Emeritus Simon Lam

Simon Lam, a UT Austin Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, created the first secure sockets layer in 1993 for Internet applications.

09/29/2023 - Simon Lam has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for creating the first secure sockets layer in 1993 for internet applications. Read More

Paving the Way for a New Era in Crash Consistency Testing

a chipmunk stuffing peanuts into its cheeks
09/27/2023 - The work of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Computer Science in crash consistency has yielded a breakthrough innovation—the Chipmunk system. At its core, Chipmunk zeroes in on a crucial mission—meticulously testing file systems to identify and tackle crash consistency bugs that can significantly impact data integrity and system reliability. The UT Austin team has produced a promising solution that could pave the way for a new era in data storage and stability. Read More

Don Fussell's Leadership Recognized with CNS Rom Rhome Award

UT Computer Science Professor and Department Chair Don Fussell
09/15/2023 - Don Fussell, Department Chair and Professor of Computer Science, has received the prestigious CNS Rom Rhome Leadership Award from the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin. This award celebrates his outstanding contributions to the field and exemplary service as an academic leader. Read More

Empowering the Future: Celebrating 20 Years of UT Austin's Computer Science Academies

Collection of images of teens participating in UT Computer Science Summer Camps.

UT Austin's pre-collegiate computer science summer camps are celebrating their 20th Anniversary

08/15/2023 - For the past two decades, The University of Texas at Austin's Computer Science Academies have been at the forefront of providing pre-collegiate computer science education. Starting with the inception of First Bytes, a summer camp aimed at high school women, the program has undergone a remarkable evolution, expanding opportunities to diverse students from across Texas and the United States substantially. Read More

New “Essentials of AI” Course Launches This Fall

White letters spell the abbreviation AI with bands of color surrounding

Credit: The University of Texas at Austin

08/11/2023 - The Department of Computer Science and the Good Systems program present a one semester-credit-hour course titled “Essentials of AI for Life and Society.” Experts in artificial intelligence predict that AI-powered technologies will continue to become more and more a part of our everyday lives. It will affect how we work, spend our leisure time, make policy decisions and make sense of the world around us. And yet, most of us don’t really understand how the technologies work or what their potential risks and benefits are. Read More

Five Computer Science Students Recognized as Dean's Honored Graduates

Five UT Computer Science students named 2023 Dean's Honored Graduates - Eli Bradley, Brandon James Curl, Matthew Giordano, and Stanley Wei
05/04/2023 - As part of Spring Commencement 2023, the College of Natural Sciences recognizes the Dean’s Honored Graduates, the highest honor given by the college to its graduating seniors. The award has been given since 1991. Read on to find out more about the five outstanding UT Computer Science students selected this academic year. Read More

Isil Dillig Named Texas 10 Award Winner

Photograph credit - Jeff Wilson

Photograph credit: Jeff Wilson. Photo source: the Alcalde 

05/02/2023 - UT Computer Science Isil Dillig has been named one of the Texas 10 award winners for 2023 by the Alcalde. The Texas 10 award is an annual recognition given to ten outstanding UT Austin faculty members who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. Dillig's selection for the Texas 10 award is a well-deserved recognition of her contributions to the field of computer science and her dedication to teaching and mentoring. Read More

Brain Activity Decoder Can Reveal Stories in People’s Minds

Alex Huth (left), Shailee Jain (center) and Jerry Tang (right) prepare to collect brain activity data in the Biomedical Imaging Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The researchers trained their semantic decoder on dozens of hours of brain activity data from participants, collected in an fMRI scanner. Photo Credit: Nolan Zunk/University of Texas at Austin.

Alex Huth (left), Shailee Jain (center) and Jerry Tang (right) prepare to collect brain activity data in the Biomedical Imaging Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The researchers trained their semantic decoder on dozens of hours of brain activity data from participants, collected in an fMRI scanner.
Photo Credit: Nolan Zunk/University of Texas at Austin.

05/01/2023 - The work relies in part on a transformer model, similar to the ones that power ChatGPT A new artificial intelligence system called a semantic decoder can translate a person’s brain activity — while listening to a story or silently imagining telling a story — into a continuous stream of text. The system developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin might help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by strokes, to communicate intelligibly again. Read More

UT Computer Science Graduate Program Among Top Ten in the Nation

Number 8 Best Graduate Computer Science Program in the Nation
04/25/2023 - AUSTIN, Texas — The UT Computer Science graduate program continues to be recognized as a top 10 program in the nation, as well as among the top 5 among public schools and the best in Texas, according to the latest edition of “Best Graduate Schools” from U.S. News & World Report released today. The magazine ranks programs in alternating years. Read More

A More Efficient Future For Neural Network Systems

layers of wood representing layers of data
04/21/2023 - UT Computer Science Ph.D. Garrett Bingham’s research under Professor Risto Miikkulainen in smart automated machine learning has made significant steps toward more efficient neural network systems. Read More

Amazon Teams Up With UT To Establish New Science Hub

Amazon Science Hub
04/11/2023 - AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin and Amazon are launching a science and engineering research partnership to enhance understanding in a variety of areas, including video streaming, search and information retrieval and robotics. Read More

Competitive Programming Club Team Takes First Place at ICPC Regional Competition

Professors Etienne Vouga and Glenn Downing with UTPC student members Aaryan Prakash, Caleb Hu, Mark Wen in front of the Gates Dell Complex.
03/06/2023 - On Sat, 25 Feb 2023, the UT Programming Team competed in the ICPC South Central USA Regional Competition. As a result, one team will advance to the ICPC North America Division Championships on Mon, 29 May 2023.   Read More

Advances in Batch Arguments Reduce Verification Costs

Stacks of shipping containers side-by-side in various colors.
03/03/2023 - A methodology developed by UT professors will allow the cost of verifying computations to be reduced by batching many separate arguments together. Brent Waters, a computer science professor and a co-author of the paper, was inspired to find a more efficient way to verify computations by refining techniques that had already come out over a decade ago. Read More

Greg Durrett Awarded Sloan Fellowships

UT Computer Science Assistant Professor Greg Durrett
02/17/2023 - ​The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today the early-career researchers across the U.S. and Canada who are recipients of the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowship, including UT Computer Science Assistant Professor Greg Durrett. ​Based on a "candidate's research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in their field," independent panels composed of senior scholars select 126 recipients every year out of more than a thousand who are nominated by fellow scientists. Read More

AAAI Selects UT Professor of Computer Science as a Fellow

UT Computer Science Professor Risto Miikkulainen
02/16/2023 - The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) has selected Risto Miikkulainen as one of 11 fellows for 2023. Founded in 1990, AAAI's Fellows Program seeks to highlight the individuals who contribute greatly to the field of AI. Miikkulainen was honored for "significant contributions to neuroevolution techniques and applications." Read More

Pingali Receives Prestigious Parallel Computing Award

UT Computer Science Professor Keshav Pingali
02/06/2023 - The IEEE Computer Society has selected Keshav Pingali to receive the 2023 IEEE CS Charles Babbage Award for his "contributions to high-performance compilers and graph computing." At The University of Texas at Austin, Pingali is the W.A. "Tex" Moncrief Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and core faculty in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. Read More

Scott Aaronson Elected AAAS Fellow

UT Computer Science Professor Scott Aaronson
02/01/2023 - UT Computer Science Professor Scott Aaronson is one of six faculty in The University of Texas at Austin, to be elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)— the world's largest general scientific society. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally. He has won numerous awards throughout his career, most recently the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery Prize for groundbreaking contributions to quantum computing. Read More

AI Master’s Program Launches With Ability to Serve Thousands

The University of Texas at Austin tower reflected in glass building
01/26/2023 - Delivered by the Department of Computer Science and Machine Learning Laboratory, the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) will be the first large-scale degree program of its kind and the only master’s degree program in AI from a top-ranked institution to be priced close to $10,000. The master’s degree covers about two years’ worth of course content, to be taken at the learner’s own pace, and master’s degree will be delivered in partnership with online course provider edX. Read More
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