OUR RESEARCH

SCS Honors 10 Scientists with Newell Medals for Research Excellence

Ten outstanding researchers with projects based in the School of Computer Science (SCS) received the prestigious Allen Newell Medal for Research Excellence at the school's annual "Town Hall Meeting" on February 22, 2001.

Recipients included University Professor of Psychology and Computer Science John R. Anderson and Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) senior research scientists Kenneth Koedinger and Albert Corbett for their work on cognitive intelligent tutors. The tutors, which have been teaching algebra and geometry to high school students since 1993, are based on a learning model or expert system that blends research in cognitive psychology with artificial intelligence to diagnose learning problems.

The tutors coach students as they work through a problem and have been proven to significantly improve student performance over traditionally delivered classes.

In 1998, the university spun off Carnegie Learning Inc., a company that has commercialized the tutor software. Corbett and Koedinger continue to provide new concepts and information to Carnegie Learning and recently have been developing tutors to teach middle school math.

Anderson, who pioneered the work on intelligent tutors, said the Newell Medal was "a particularly gratifying award. I came to Carnegie Mellon because of (Allen) Newell," he said.

HCII Director Daniel Siewiorek and Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES) Research Engineer Asim Smailagic received medals for their work in wearable computing and its applications. They were cited "for revolutionizing hardware-software co-design through the creation and demonstration of task-specific wearable computers, for developing a rapid prototyping methodology for such systems and for demonstrating the military and industrial applications of wearable computers."

More than two dozen wearable computers, three of which have won international design awards, have been designed, fabricated and evaluated over the past decade.

"I feel honored to receive this," Siewiorek said. "When I sought Allen"s (Newell) advice, he said 'Do good research. The rest will follow.' We worked in my rapid prototyping class to produce a complete product in four months. This work led to my current job as HCII director. I feel very connected to Allen. The Human Computer Interaction Institute's roots are in his work."

Anthony DiGioia, M.D. (E 1979, 1982), and Branislav Jaramaz, Robotics Institute research scientists and co-directors of the Center for Orthopedic Research at UPMC Shadyside, and Takeo Kanade, the U.A. and Helen Whitaker university professor of robotics and computer science, were recognized for developing computer-assisted surgical navigation tools and technologies. One of these systems, HipNav, was the first computer-assisted surgical navigation tool designed to improve success rates in hip replacement surgery.

"These computer and robotic assisted technologies are the surgical toolbox of the future and will enable more accurate and less invasive surgical techniques," DiGioia said.

In 1993, DiGioia and Kanade founded the Robotics Institute's Center for Medical Robotics and Computer-Assisted Surgery to foster the application of robotic technologies within medicine.

Computer Science Professor Robert W. Harper Jr. and his former student, J. Gregory Morrisett, now an assistant professor at Cornell University, received medals for type-directed compilation, which checks for errors in compilers that convert programming languages into machine code. Harper and Morrisett were cited "for seminal contributions to the theory and practice of type-directed compilation, leading to improvements in the modularity and correctness of compilers for type-safe languages."

Harper explained that type-directed compilation brings some of a programmer's reasoning into the text of machine code.

"Traditional compilers couldn't take advantage of what the programmer had in mind as they do their translations," he said. "Type-directed compilation makes code more efficient by being faster and taking up less space. This way, the compiler can check its own work and reduce errors."

A blue ribbon panel chaired by SCS Carnegie Group Professor Mahadev Satyanarayanan selected the awardees. The panel included Turing Award winner Manuel Blum, Language Technologies Institute Director Jaime Carbonell, the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics Raj Reddy, the Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Mathematical Logic and Philosophy Dana Scott, Kanade and the late Richard King Mellon University Professor of Computer Science and Psychology Herbert Simon.

SCS Dean Jim Morris also presented "Outstanding Member of the Community Awards" to Dennis Cosgrove, senior research programmer in the HCII, Suzanne Muth, graduate education programs coordinator in the Robotics Institute, and Daniel Huber, a Robotics Institute graduate student who created its Web pages. Paul Bennett and Chris Colohan received Graduate Student Service Awards for work on the SCS publication "Guide to Living in Pittsburgh," and for other services to the Computer Science Department's graduate program. For more, see "Five Outstanding SCS Members Honored With Citizenship Award."

The Newell Medals were created to honor the late Allen Newell, who played a pivotal role in creating the School of Computer Science and elevating it to world-class status. Newell, who helped to co-found the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, was a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon from 1961 until his death in 1992. See the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence Web page for a list of past winners and additional information.