School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3891
(412)268-8525 . (412)268-5576 (fax)
This Issue: April 12, 1999
NEW FELLOWSHIPS...Congratulations to Sanjit Seshia, who has been awarded a 1999 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. He will be working closely with his advisor, Randy Bryant, in the coming years.
IN DEFENSE...
DARRELL KINDRED introduces "Theory Generation for Security Protocols" at his
CS oral on TaxDay, April 15 at 11:30 am in Wean 5409. His committee
includes Jeannette Wing (Chair), Daniel Jackson, Doug Tygar, and John
Rushby (SRI International).
ZORAN POPOVIC uses "Motion Transformation by Physically Based Spacetime
Optimization" at his CS thesis defense on Friday, April 16 at 11:00 pm in
Wean 5409. His committee includes: Andy Witkin (Chair), David Baraff,
Paul Heckbert, Matt Mason and Michael Cohen (Microsoft Research).
GEOFF GORDON tests out "Approximate Solutions to Markov Decision Processes"
at his CS thesis oral on Tuesday, April 20 at 10:00 am in Wean 4623. His
committee includes: Tom Mitchell (Chair), Andrew Moore, John Lafferty,
Satinder Singh (AT&T Labs and University of Colorado).
REPORT FROM THE PROGRAMMING FRONT...This past weekend, CMU participated in the finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, held for the first time outside of the U.S. at TU Eindhoven in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Our proud team, consisting of Yih-Chun Hu (grad), Dan Rosenberry (senior), and Larry Greenfield (junior), correctly solved 5 of the 8 problems, tying them with 6 other schools for 11th place out of 62 competing teams from all over the world. Mark Stehlik, team advisor, notes that "These 62 teams were the best of 1,457 teams that competed in regional competitions throughout the world this past fall. The winning team in the finals, from the University of Waterloo, correctly solved 6 problems from the set of 8." This is the fourth time in the past 6 years that CMU has been represented in the final round. No small accomplishment! Congratulations to all the team members, who invite you to visit the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest site at: http://acm.baylor.edu/acmicpc for more particulars and team photographs!
AND WHAT DID THEY DO WHEN NOT PROGRAMMING? After grueling hours of problem solving, the CMU programming team also notes the results of their "nightly hearts card-playing competition." Team member Yih-Chun was overall winner by the "barest of margins", notes Mark Stehlik, with final scores of...
MOBOTS ARE COMING!...on Friday, April 16. The finals of the 5th Annual Mobot race begin at Noon, as the mobots begin their trek over the hair-raising curves, twists, and periodic bumps of the race course in front of Wean Hall. The competition, designed to let participants explore some of the main technical aspects involved in building an autonomous robotic agent, includes the mechanical construction of the robot to allow for outdoors navigation on non-flat terrain; the development of robot sensors to robustly detect the relevant features of the task, in particular the white line; and reasoning rules that allow the robot to select the appropriate actions....all under varying light, temperature and other environmental factors. Following the race, join us at 3:30 pm for "The 15th Gate: The Mobot Awards Ceremony and Wrap-Up" in the Adamson Wing, Baker Hall. Refreshments will be served at 3:15 pm. Participants and winners will be on hand to recount their tales in designing and building these mini-marvels!
CS FACULTY CANDIDATES...
April 15: PETER STONE, CMU, "Layered Learning in Multi-Agent Systems",
10:00 am, Wean 4623. His faculty host is Andrew Moore.
April 19: KARL CRARY, CMU, "Proofs, Types and Certified Code", 10:00 am,
Wean 4623. His faculty host is Seth Goldstein.
SCS STAFF AWARD NOMINEES ANNOUNCED...The nominations are in for the SCS Staff Recognition Awards! The final recipients will be announced on Monday, May 3 at the Awards Ceremony and Reception in Rangos Hall 1 & 2 at 10:00 am. The nominees, listed alphabetically, include:
- TINA COBB - Nominator: Kathy Sutton
- LAURA FORSYTH - Nominator: Dan Siewiorek
- JEAN HARPLEY - Nominator: Tom Mitchell
- JENNIFER LANDEFELD - Nominator: Garth Gibson
- CAROLYN LUDWIG/STEPHANIE RISO (team nomination) - Nominator: Takeo Kanade
- PATTY MACKIEWICZ - Nominator: Garth Gibson
- PAUL MAZAITIS - Nominator: Jim Zelenka
- SUSAN PALLONE - Nominator: Dick Martin
- DENNIS ROYSE - Nominator: Ed Pikula
- CLEAH SCHLUETER - Nominator: Robert Harper
- KEN SHARP - Nominator: Roger Dannenberg
- DIANE STIDLE - Nominator: Tom Mitchell
- WEIYI YANG - Nominator: Monika Woszczyna
Come join us in honoring these outstanding members of our community.
BRING YOUR DAUGHTERS TO WORK...The 7th Annual "Take Our Daughters To Work", for young women ages 9-15, is scheduled for Thursday, April 22. For details, please visit www.as.cmu.edu/todtw.
COMMENCEMENT MOMENTS...Commencement regalia (ie, caps/gowns/hoods) should have been ordered by now. Right? You have been responding to your program offices to let them know if you will be attending. Right? Your have told your families and friends about the times/locations of various events. Right? You have been checking out the www.cmu.edu/commencement on a regular basis. Right? You have rsvp'ed to attend the SCS Brunch and SCS Diploma Ceremony. Right? Then all is well ;-)
WORDS FOR THOUGHT...
THURSDAY, APRIL 15
**PURE AND APPLIED LOGIC SEMINAR: Rick Sommer, Stanford University, "Elementary
Infinitesimal Analysis", 4:30 pm, Wean 5409.
**WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG SEMINAR: "Tax-Day Blues: Can Procrastination be
Cured?", Wean Hall, 12:00 am to 11:59 pm.
FRIDAY, APRIL 16
**STUDENT SEMINAR SERIES: Aaron Greenhouse, "A Tool for Systematic Program
Evolution and its Object-Oriented Effects System", Noon, Wean 4623.
**THEORY SEMINAR: Russell Impagliazzo, "A Tool for Obtaining Tighter Security
Analyses of Pseudorandom Function Based Constructions, with Applications
to PRP->PRF Conversion", 3:30 pm, Wean 7220.
MONDAY, APRIL 19
**COMPUTER SYSTEMS/PROGRAMMING SYSTEMS SEMINAR: Wen-mei Hwu, ECE and CSL,
University Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, "Beyond EPIC: Semantic-Based
Program Optimization Technology", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.
**LTI SEMINAR: Thomas Hofmann, UC Berkeley, "A Probabilistic Machine Learning
Framework for Improved Information Access", 3:00 pm, Blue Conference
Room, Cyert Hall 279.
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