|
Dear Bowers CIS community,
On January 24, the Cornell community mourned the passing of Ann S. Bowers ’54. Ann, whose transformational gift established the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, was a forward-thinking leader and philanthropist. I am grateful that her legacy of fostering environments where technologists and innovators thrive will endure through Cornell Bowers CIS.
Today, I would like to share some of the latest research and highlight the recent accomplishments of our community. In the past month, multiple faculty and students have received prestigious awards for their exemplary contributions, underscoring the remarkable research and scholarship at the college. Congratulations to all the award recipients for their well-deserved recognition!
I also want to call attention to an exciting new collaboration with the state government, peer institutions, and industry partners to elevate New York as a global leader in Artificial Intelligence. Cornell is part of the Empire AI consortium which is making a $400M investment in computing for AI. This follows a December announcement of Cornell joining the AI Alliance, led by IBM and Meta Platforms, to support and enhance open innovation in AI. I am delighted that Cornell faculty are leading these important efforts in AI innovation.
Wishing you a successful semester,
| |
|
Kavita Bala
Dean
Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science
dean@cis.cornell.edu
| | |
|
|
Ann S. Bowers ’59, a pioneering technology industry executive and longtime philanthropist whose transformational gift established the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, died Jan. 24 at her home in Palo Alto, California. Bowers was 86.
| |
|
Three faculty members named
2023 ACM Fellows
Phoebe Sengers, professor of information science and science and technology studies, Noah Snavely, professor of computer science at Cornell Tech, and Kilian Weinberger, professor of computer science, have been named 2023 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows.
| |
| | |
|
|
Chattopadhyay receives the NAS Michael and Sheila Held Prize
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has selected Eshan Chattopadhyay, assistant professor of computer science, as the 2024 co-recipient of the Michael and Sheila Held Prize, along with collaborator David Zuckerman, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, for their novel work on randomized algorithms.
| | |
|
Cardie and Weinberger named AAAI Fellows for contributions in AI
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) has elected Claire Cardie and Kilian Weinberger as AAAI Fellows for 2024.
Cardie is being honored for her research on natural language processing, and Weinberger is being recognized for his contribution to machine learning and deep learning research.
| |
| |
|
|
Weatherspoon receives Diamond Award for Embracing the Power of DEI
Throughout his more than 15 years as a faculty member at Cornell, Hakim Weatherspoon has helped to create innovative university and communal programs that guide underrepresented computer science students through their educational journey, ultimately diversifying the field.
| |
|
Interested in a summer research project? Apply to BURE!
BURE helps undergrads gain new skills and explore research with a hands-on summer experience. Open to all Cornell Bowers CIS undergraduates, BURE pairs undergraduates with a faculty mentor for a 10-week summer research program.
| |
|
|
Graduate student spotlight
Travis Lloyd is a doctoral student in information science from Ardsley, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Brown University and now, under the guidance of Mor Naaman, studies how new technologies shape power relations in society.
| |
| | |
|
|
CS and IS grads named Schwarzman Scholars
Jessica Hong ’20 and Andrew Talone ’24 are members of the 2024-25 cohort of Schwarzman Scholars, an international program that nurtures a network of future global leaders.
| | |
|
MPS project measures trust in generative AI
A student team from the Master of Professional Studies (MPS) program in the Department of Information Science led a research project alongside Google to develop metrics to measure user-perceived trustworthiness in burgeoning GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard.
| |
| |
|
Honorable mention of the 2024 Computing Research Association's (CRA) Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award:
Guilin Hu
Pinxian Lu
| |
|
By graduate TAs, for graduate TAs: Belonging at Cornell mini grant funds 2023 Advanced Graduate Teaching Cohort
At its best, teaching builds a sense of community among students and instructors in a class. But where do early-career instructors find community outside of the classroom?
That question was how the Belonging at Cornell Advanced Graduate Teaching Cohort (AGTC) was born. The brainchild of Kim Webb and Rink Tacoma-Fogal, both Center for Teaching Innovation Graduate Fellows, the cohort formed in Spring 2023, and was based on an identified need for developing teaching skills beyond the capabilities of a teaching orientation program.
| | |
|
|
Consortium aims to make NYS the world’s AI capital
A consortium aiming to make New York a global leader in artificial intelligence would help Cornell play a role in shaping the future of AI, promote responsible research and development, create jobs, and unlock opportunities focused on public good.
| |
|
Students and faculty connect at Dinner with the Deans
The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hosted their annual Dinner with the Deans. The event offered undergraduate and graduate students a night of good food, laughter, and discussion with Cornell Bowers CIS deans, chairs, and faculty.
| | |
|
|
Kowal ‘17 to join statistics and data science faculty
Dan Kowal Ph.D. ’17 will join the faculty in the college as an associate professor of statistics and data science, beginning July 1, 2024. He returns to Cornell Bowers CIS’ Department of Statistics and Data Science (SDS) via an appointment through Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), one of two other colleges that comprise SDS.
| | |
|
|
Jung, Peng ’19, and Gao ’17 receive AI seed funding
Malte Jung, associate professor of information science and the Nancy H. ’62 and Philip M. ’62 Young Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow, along with two Cornell alumni, were awarded a six-figure seed grant from the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society (TRAILS) to explore trust building in embodied artificial intelligence systems.
| | |
|
XR Collaboratory announces inaugural grant winners
The XR Collaboratory (XRC) at Cornell Tech has selected two winning proposals for its inaugural XR Collaboratory Prototyping Grant, which provides technical guidance and monetary support to develop augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. Thijs Roumen, assistant professor of information science, who is supporting Ph.D. student Shuo Feng, and François Guimbretière, professor of information science, who is supporting Ph.D. student Mose Sakashita, are the recipients of the new grant award.
|
| |
Ruidong Zhang, a doctoral student in the field of information science, is the lead developer of HPSpeech, a micro-sonar system that transforms off-the-shelf headphones into a silent-speech reader. Think of mouthing the words “volume up” to adjust music volume on a nearby smartphone. | | | | |
