Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science News is the e-newsletter of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, which houses Computer Science, Information Science, and Statistics and Data Science.

March 2021

Since my last dispatch, the college has received a transformative gift, the fourth largest in Cornell history, from alumna Ann S. Bowers ’59. With her nine-figure gift, we have become the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the first college named after a woman at Cornell. Beyond the naming, the new gift positions us for growth—recruiting new faculty and starting the process for a new building to sit beside Gates Hall to accommodate our growth. Despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, I am proud of the way Cornell has rallied to create a safer environment. As in the Fall, the Spring term has been defined by following rigorous COVID protocols, which have enabled the university to open itself to a successful, if limited, on-campus experience. Of course, it remains essential that we continue to abide by the practices that keep us healthy. We have established the new Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and are pleased to welcome Dr. LeeAnn Roberts as the inaugural Director of the Office of DEI for the college. We thank Hakim Weatherspoon for serving as Interim Associate Dean, and welcome David Bindel, associate professor of Computer Science, who is now serving as the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. David concurrently serves as the Director of the Center for Applied Mathematics (CAM). David has been leading initiatives to increase the recruitment and retention of diverse Ph.D. students and to promote an inclusive climate for all students. Our hiring efforts continue to yield exciting new colleagues. The CS department looks forward to the arrival of new faculty, starting this summer, including Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee, Kevin Ellis, Justin Hsu, and Alexandra Silva, all at Ithaca, and Emma Pierson (at Cornell Tech). Tapo works in Robotics; Kevin works in AI; both Alexandra and Justin work in Programming Languages; and Emma, who will join at Cornell Tech, works in Data Science. In Information Science, Gili Vidan joins the faculty this summer. Gili works in digital technologies, trust, and transparency. In Statistics and Data Science, we welcome Ahmed Al Alaoui, who joined the SDS faculty in January and specializes in high-dimensional phenomena in statistics and probability theory. Please join us in welcoming our marvelous new colleagues and collaborators. I wish you a wonderful Spring semester and encourage you to keep us informed of your goings on. We love to hear about projects, achievements, research and news from the wider community, especially alumni. Kavita Bala Dean, Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science  (kb.cis-dean@cornell.edu)

Computing and Information Science is the gracious recipient of a landmark gift from Ann S. Bowers '59, a Silicon Valley champion and longtime philanthropist. Her nine-figure commitment establishes the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and provides the enabling support for the construction of a new building for the Faculty of Computing and Information Science. “Ann’s generosity and her passion for nurturing scholarship have already touched the lives of countless Cornellians,” President Martha E. Pollack said. “This new gift creates so many exciting possibilities for our faculty and students to learn and to create knowledge in one of the best programs of computing and information science in the world – one that has always emphasized both the design and creation of technology, and an understanding of its social impact. The Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science will be a fitting tribute to Ann’s many achievements.”

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The Cornell Silicon Valley program is pleased to present CSV21: Tech in Focus from 4 to 7 p.m. (PDT) today, Tuesday, March 30. For the first time, the conference will take place on a fully digital platform, enabling the entire Cornell community to participate. Registration is required. The Conference will feature alumni, faculty, and students sharing their latest innovations, research findings, and trend-insights relevant to the tech industry as well as a special tribute to Ann Bowers ’59.

Dr. LeeAnn Roberts Named Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion We are pleased to welcome Dr. LeeAnn Roberts. She serves as the college's inaugural Director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Read more about Dr. Roberts in this welcome message from DEI leadership.

Bindel Named Associate Dean for DEI David Bindel, associate professor of computer science, has been named Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. During his time in Computing and Information Science, Bindel has been leading initiatives to increase recruitment and retention of diverse Ph.D. students. Read more about Bindell in this message from Dean Kavita Bala.

Carla Gomes Honored with 2021 Feigenbaum Prize

Carla P. Gomes, the Ronald and Antonia Nielsen Professor of Computing and Information Science and the Director of the Institute for Computational Sustainability, is the recipient of the 2021 Feigenbaum Prize, given by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).  The prize is awarded biennially to recognize and encourage outstanding AI research advances made by using experimental methods of computer science. The “laboratories” for the experimental work are in real-world domains, where the power of the research results are demonstrated.

Cardie Named Inaugural Associate Dean for Education Professor Claire Cardie, the Joseph C. Ford Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Professor of Information Science, will become the inaugural Associate Dean for Education in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science beginning April 1, 2021.

Nate Foster, associate professor of Computer Science, is a co-investigator on a recently awarded multi-million dollar DARPA grant to fund the development of a fully programmable computer network. Tanzeem Choudhury, the Roger and Joelle Burnell Professor in Integrated Health and Technology at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in Information Science, launched the Precision Behavioral Health Initiative, a collaboration between health industry professionals and faculty and students throughout the college.

Students from Statistics and Data Science have teamed up with physicians and scientists from Weill Cornell Medicine to crunch data and draw insights from a Cornell-led COVID-19 patient registry. arXiv — the incomparable preprint repository created by professor of physics and information science Paul Ginsparg — has been named among Nature's "Ten Computer Codes that Transformed Science".

Two Cornell Computer Scientists Win Sloan Fellowships

Congratulations to Rachit Agarwal, assistant professor of computer science, and Sasha Rush, associate professor of computer science, at Cornell Tech, who are two of four Cornellians who recently won 2021 Sloan Research Fellowships. Agarwal's recent research focuses on building a more modernized software ecosystem, while Rush studies natural language processing, including research on NLP models combining deep learning and probabilistic modeling.

'Best Paper' Honors for College Scholars

Thorsten Joachims, professor of computer science and information science, is senior author of "Controlling Fairness and Bias in Dynamic Learning-to-Rank," winner of Best Paper at the ACM SIGIR Conference.

Sasha Rush, associate professor of computer science, at Cornell Tech, racked up awards: (1) Best Paper at ACM 2020 Design Automation Conference (2) Best Demo Award at 2020 EMNLP (3) Honorable Mention at 2020 ACL.

Nate Foster, associate professor of computer science, and collaborators won a Best Paper Award at ACM SIGCOMM CoNEXT '20 for "Forwarding and Routing with Packet Subscription."

Information Science Professor Gets SIGCHI Dissertation Award  Qian Yang, who joined information science as an assistant professor last Fall, is one of three recipients of the SIGCHI 2021 Dissertation Award for her paper, "Profiling AI as a Material for User Experience Design."

Roughgarden CS '02, Tardos Take Test of Time Honors “How Bad is Selfish Routing?”— a 2000 paper penned by Tim Roughgarden CS Ph.D. '02 and former adviser, Éva Tardos, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Science and Chair of the department — received the Test of Time Award at the 61st Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science. Roughgarden is currently a computer science professor at Columbia University.

Info Sci's Vashistha Wins Innovation in Tech Award  Info Sci Assistant Professor Aditya Vashistha has been named the 2020-2021 Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) and ProQuest WAGS/ProQuest Innovation in Technology Award winner. This award recognizes a single dissertation among 200+ member institutions of WAG. Vashistha's dissertation is called "Social Computing for Social Good in Low-Resource Environments."

Zhang, Alvisi Recognized with Best Paper Award at USENIX A research team including Yunhao Zhang, a doctoral student in computer science, and his advisor, Lorenzo Alvisi, Tisch University Professor of Computer Science, received a Jay Lepreau Best Paper Award at the 14th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI) conference.

Using Chess and AI to Better Understand Human Fallibility A research team, including Jon Kleinberg, Tisch University Professor of computer science and information science, is putting artificial intelligence to a new chess test: can a machine-learning chess engine be trained to play like a human? It can, the team found. Coverage from Wired

Info Sci Research: People Follow a Crowd, No Matter its Politics A research team including lead author Maurice Jakesch, a doctoral student in information science, Anna Evtushenko, fellow information science doctoral student, and senior author Mor Naaman, professor of information science, finds we tend to trust the opinions of a large group, regardless of its politics.

Info Sci Ph.D. Launches Startup to Assist BIPOC Entrepreneurs Anthonia Carter, a doctoral student in Information Science and a 2020 IIE Centennial Fellow, has launched EGK Starters, a design-led, accelerator-like program for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)-led startups. Catch up with Carter on why she started EGK Starters and her vision for addressing venture capital's lack of diversity.

Trio of Stats and Data Science Students Receive Honors Three doctoral students from Statistics and Data Science were recently recognized for their individual academic excellence.

Mike Bing received the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu Scholarship based on outstanding nominations from SDS faculty. The scholarship is awarded to Ph.D. students who have demonstrated exceptional academic ability and performance.

Haoxuan (Peter) Wu is among the 10 recipients of the American Statistical Association's 2021 Section on Bayesian Statistical Science student paper competition.

Grace Deng received the 2021 American Statistical Association Business and Economic Statistics Student Paper Award. Deng will present her award-winning paper, "GANS for Missing Data Imputation and Learning-to-Rank," at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) 2021.

Raghu CS '19 Named 2020 STAT Wunderkind  Maithra Raghu, CS Ph.D. '19, former advisee of Tisch University Professor Jon Kleinberg and currently a Senior Research Scientist at Google Brain, has been named one of the 2020 STAT Wunderkinds for her work on AI and medicine.

Tan CS '16 Joins CS Faculty at University of Chicago  Chenhao Tan, CS Ph.D. '16, former advisee of Lillian Lee, Charles Roy Davis Professor of Computer Science, has joined the faculty of Computer Science at The University of Chicago. Read a profile of Tan and learn of his contributions to human-centered AI, courtesy of his new faculty home.

Jack IS Ph.D. '20 Pens Piece on Networked Authoritarianism Maggie Jack, IS Ph.D. '20, former advisee of Steve Jackson of Information Science, wrote a featured piece for New Mandala on how to better understand the dynamics of networked authoritarianism in Southeast Asia. Additionally, she is the lead author of "Networked Authoritarianism at the Edge," which was recently accepted to CSCW 2021.

Most Downloaded Cornell Dissertation From the Past 8 Years? From This Computer Science Alumni  Adem Efe Gencer, CS Ph.D. '17, who wrote his dissertation “On Scalability of Blockchain Technologies” under the direction of Emin Gün Sirer and Robbert van Renesse, has learned that his work is the most downloaded Cornell dissertation on ProQuest in the past eight years.

A big THANK YOU to all who supported the college during Cornell Giving Day 2021. Your Giving Day gifts totaled $84,277, nearly doubling our total from last year. A Big Red shout-out and a special Thank You to Computing and Information Science alumni Ting Ke ’02, who generously matched the first $20,000 in gifts to the college. Your support on Giving Day helps us continue our mission to mold students into audacious world-changers. Again, we thank you.

Ahmed El Alaoui of Statistics and Data Science The newest member of the Statistics and Data Science faculty, Ahmed El Alaoui focuses his research on high-dimensional phenomena in statistics and probability theory, statistical physics, algorithms, and problems where these areas meet. Learn more about Dr. El Alaoui's path from computer science and AI to theoretical approaches to statistics.

“Instilling in students that they are smart enough to code is really big… Interactive elements help show students how to read and write code and to understand the concepts in ways that make learning fun, which helps keep students going.” Melanie Walsh, Info Sci visiting lecturer from How We Teach Python to English Majors

cis.cornell.edu

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