Computer Science eNewsletter

Empowering Young Females to Pursue Computer Science

PhD Student Brittany JohnsonBrittany Johnson has a passion. As a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and PhD student in NC State’s Computer Science Department, she pursues research on improving developer productivity. But while she strives to improve workplace efficiency, she works just as passionately on recruiting young women and diverse student populations into the field of computer science. Because to her, therein lies an untapped market. more

Department Announces Graduate Certificate in Data Science Foundations

The Department of Computer Science and the Department of Statistics at NC State University are pleased to announce the approval and launch of a Graduate Certificate in Data Science Foundations (DSF). Applications are currently being accepted for Fall 2016. This online/on-campus program is primarily intended for working professionals who have some formal training in Computer Science and/or Statistics and wish to acquire a basic understanding of data science to improve their on-the-job experience and career prospects. more

Singh Named Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professor

Dr. Munindar SinghDr. Maureen Grasso, Dean of the Graduate School, recently announced that Dr. Munindar Singh, professor of computer science,has been selected as one of four recipients of the Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professorship Awards for 2016. The Award Selection Committee, which is made up of the Dean of the Graduate School, President of the University Graduate Student Association, last year’s award recipients and one member of the Graduate Administrative Board, was unanimous in its praise for Singh’s exceptional record of graduate student training and the extraordinary quality of the mentoring he provided both during and after their graduate programs at NC State. more

NC State one of “Top 50 Undergraduate Schools to Study Game Design”

The Video Game Design Program at NC State has been recognized on the Princeton Review's list saluting the top 50 undergraduate schools to study game design for 2016. NC State ranked 9th on the list of public universities, and 33rd overall. more

Creative Course Redesigns Benefit Students

Congratulations to Teaching Assistant Professor Jessica Schmidt, on being awarded a Critical Path Course Redesign grant, which she is using to “flip” CSC116, an intro course that teaches Java as an introduction to computer science. The Critical Path Course Redesign grants offered through the annual DELTA Grants program focus on the challenges created by high-demand and critical path courses such as increased enrollments, inconsistency in learning experiences, repeat enrollments, learning space constraints and/or high DFW rates. more

Williams Honored as Member of Research Leadership Academy

Dr. Laurie WilliamsDr. Laurie Williams, professor and associate department head in the NC State Computer Science Department, is one of 11 inaugural members of the university’s Research Leadership Academy. The newly created academy will promote a culture of research leadership at NC State and operate as the faculty-driven epicenter for the development and implementation of best practices in the empowerment of research faculty at all levels of the university. more

Barnes Receives NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award

Congratulations to Dr. Tiffany Barnes, associate professor of computer science at NC State University, on winning the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award. This award is one of four awarded by NCWIT this year, and is the only one awarded in the Senior Faculty member (professor or associate) category. Barnes was recognized for her outstanding mentorship, high-quality research opportunities, recruitment of women and minority students, and efforts to encourage and advance undergraduates in computing-related fields. more

Engineering Oval: A Convergence of Opportunity

The Engineering Oval building is the crucial next step in the College of Engineering's move to Centennial Campus, providing critical infrastructure that allows faculty members and students to leverage the power of convergence across disciplines in an atmosphere unmatched anywhere in the nation. Learn more about the plans for this new building and the realization of a vision decades in the making. more

Kapadia Receives SAS Graduate Industrial Traineeship

Chirag KapadiaCongratulations to graduate student Chirag Kapadia, in the NC State Computer Science department, on receiving a Graduate Industrial Traineeship (GIT) valued at $46,641 from SAS Institute. Through the GIT, the students will provide research and analysis to SAS Institute including research, generation, testing and documentation of operations research software. more

31 Students Score NSF Fellowships

Another sign of NC State’s upward trajectory: a record-breaking 31 NC State students earned prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation this year, including CSC's Denae Ford. An additional 26 received honorable mention. more

Departmental Gifts & Research

DBGT has donated $25,000 in support of the ePartners Program and the Senior Design Center.

SAS has donated $2,500 as a “Diamond” level sponsor of the DiamondHacks Hack-a-thon hosted by WiCS.

Syncano has donated $2,500 as a “Diamond” level sponsor of the DiamondHacks Hack-a-thon hosted by WiCS.

The RTP Chapter of SIM has donated $1,525 to grow the NC Society for Information Management (SIM) Scholarship Endowment.

Fidelity Investments has donated $1,000 as a “Gold” level sponsor of the DiamondHacks Hack-a-thon hosted by WiCS.

Sparktivity has donated $1,000 in unrestricted support of student projects under for Dr. Ben Watson.

ReverbNation has donated $500 as a “Silver” level sponsor of the DiamondHacks Hack-a-thon hosted by WiCS.

LexisNexis has donated an unrestricted research grant in the amount of $60,000 to support the research efforts of Dr. Tim Menzies.

Dr. Ranga Vatsava was recently awarded $34,000 by Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) to support his research proposal entitled “Change Analytics for Biomass Monitoring and Urban Sprawl Detection.” more

John Streck, the Director of The Institute for Next Generation IT Systems (ITng) at NC State University, has been awarded $90,000 by Northrup Grumman to support his research proposal entitled “Scalable Data Fusion.” Streck's collaborators on this project are Associate Professor Dr. Rada Chirlova, and Principal Research Scholar Dr. Michael Kowolenko in the NC State Computer Science Department. more

Drs. Christopher Parnin, Emerson Murphy-Hill and Sarah Heckman, from the Computer Science Department at NC State University, have been awarded $355,365 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support their research proposal entitled “REU Site: Science of Software.” more

CSC Wolf Bytes

It is with mixed emotions that we share that Dr. Michael Young will be leaving us at the end of the spring semester. He has accepted a new position at the University of Utah, a joint appointment with the School of Computing and the Entertainment Arts and Engineering program. The move allows him to be closer to his roots and family in California, while providing him the professional opportunity to work at one of the top-rated games programs in the country. Dr. Young’s impact on our department cannot be overstated. From his role as founder and executive director of the NC State Digital Games Research Initiative, to his active engagement with the NC State Legislature, to his assistance in helping recruit gaming companies to the RTP area, Dr. Young has been the face of gaming at NC State University to so many people over the years. As Director of the Liquid Narrative research group, he and his students have addressed issues in cinematic 3D camera control in virtual worlds, constructed coherent, rich and understandable story lines, and built cloud-based architectures for the intelligent control of game environments and models of adaptation of story lines in interactive narrative contexts. Countless students have benefited from his efforts as he developed and directed the department’s undergraduate concentration in game development, consistently ranked among the nation’s best. And Dr. Young remains the only person in the history of NC State University to receive all three university-level “Outstanding Faculty” awards (for teaching, extension and engagement and research). We thank him for leaving an indelible mark on our program, and we wish him the very best as starts the next chapter of his life!

Congratulations to CSC PhD alum, Amit Chopra, a lecturer in the School of Computing and Communications in Lancaster University in the UK, who was recently awarded a major research award by the EPSRC of approximately $1M for his proposal Turtles: Protocol-Based Foundations for Distributed Multiagent Systems. more

CSC MS and PhD alum, Mark Sherriff, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, has been named the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society’s 2016 Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award. more

Lou Harrison, CSC alum and current Director of Educational Technology Services with DELTA at NC State University, was recently profiled by ACMSIGGRAPH. more

Follow the Department on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter!

Alumni, students, faculty, staff, and corporate partners of the NC State Department of Computer Science, interested in networking to foster collaboration, entrepreneurship, partnerships, career development and professional growth are invited to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Personalized Job Search Agent in ePack

If you are a CSC student or recent graduate (within 12 months post-graduation) and would like to receive email notifications when new jobs are posted on ePack matching your profile, you can set up your own customized job search agent to receive just the postings you desire (intern vs. full time, etc). For a short video tutorial on how to create your own personalized job agent, click here.

The Alumni Association has partnered with the University Career Development Center to make ePACK available to NC State alumni. If you are a current Alumni Association member, update your online profile by visiting the Wolfpack Connect (alumni directory) and click on the ‘Update My Info’ tab on the upper right side of the page. Select the ‘Career Connections’ tab and then choose ‘yes’ beside the question, ‘Do you want access to ePACK?’

To access ePACK you must be a member of the Alumni Association and you must be an alumnus/alumnae of NC State. If you are not a member of the Alumni Association, you can join online. Once you have received an email confirming your membership, you will be able to register for access to ePACK.

Questions: Contact Career Services Counselor Catherine Tuttle at catherine_tuttle@ncsu.edu