Allen School News

University of Washington President Michael Young has recognized 11 professors for their innovative spirit, naming them as Presidential Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows.

The 11 new Fellows, who will serve two-year terms, were chosen for their abilities to turn research into products and therapies, initiate groundbreaking programs for commercialization, collaborate with industry, and share knowledge with other researchers.

Dan Weld, WRF / Thomas J. Cable Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, is one of the 11.  Dan’s superb research and teaching are complemented by a wide variety of entrepreneurial activities, including founding multiple companies and serving as a Venture Partner with Madrona Venture Group.

Adjunct Professor David Baker, whose collaborations with CSE include the breakthrough game Foldit for protein folding and protein structure calculation, also was included.

Last year – the first year of the Presidential Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows Program – UW CSE’s Oren Etzioni and Yoky Matsuoka were named.  (Matsuoka was so darned entrepreneurial that she subsequently bolted for Nest, the “learning thermostat” startup.)

Read more here. Read more →

“With a recent string of hires, the university has seriously beefed up its faculty in the area broadly known as ‘Big Data,’ becoming increasingly important in as the Web continues to grow and spread via mobile computing …

“A New York Times profile of the department published last weekend … paints a picture of a computer science department on the rise, adding big names in academic circles to its previously established group of leaders like department chairman Hank Levy, Bill & Melinda Gates chair Ed Lazowska, and Oren Etzioni – a crucial kind of professor who straddles the worlds of research and start-ups …

“As documented in this recent Seattle Times story, that recent surge of hires added heft in machine learning, statistics, and data visualization. Those new recruits came from top programs: Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pennsylvania.”

Read the post here.

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UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (Ed LaCasse photo)

“A few weeks ago, I interviewed Madrona Venture Group’s Matt McIlwain and asked him pointedly to name one missing ingredient that’s holding back Seattle’s technology community. The veteran venture capitalist didn’t hesitate, suggesting that outsiders (and even Seattleites to some degree) don’t fully appreciate what’s being built around them …

“Well, at least some in New York City are paying attention. The New York Times published a fabulous piece today on The University of Washington’s computer science and engineering department, raising the profile of a department that often lurks in the shadows of MIT and Stanford.

“Reporter Nick Wingfield, who is based in Seattle, writes that the computer science department – through the leadership of professors Oren Etzioni, Ed Lazowska, Hank Levy and others – has ‘quietly established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy.’

“That’s pretty high praise, and it comes at a time when the UW CSE department is gaining momentum. It recently hired a number of highly-regarded faculty members, including Carlos Guestrin from Carnegie Mellon University; Ben Taskar from The University of Pennsylvania; and Jeff Heer from Stanford University. Tech leaders, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and many others, have stepped up to help with financial support.”

Read the rest of the post here. Read more →

Microsoft Atrium in UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (Stuart Isett photo)

Hank Levy, Ed Lazowska, and Oren Etzioni (Stuart Isett photo)

“Some budding entrepreneurs and computer whizzes based here in the Pacific Northwest are starting to turn heads down in Silicon Valley.

“They are professors and students at the University of Washington, home to what may be the best computer science department you’ve never heard of.

Graduate students Franzi Roesner and Sidhant Gupta (Stuart Isett photo)

“Although Stanford is considered the Hogwarts of techdom, U.W. has quietly established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy. And while Seattle-area tech icons like Microsoft and Amazon have long relied on U.W. – pronounced “U-dub” by locals – as an incubator of talent and ideas, the Valley’s hottest companies have been getting the message, too.

“Their executives have begun streaming up the coast to Seattle, fueled by a talent arms race for programmers. Facebook, Zynga and Google have opened offices in the area, trying to woo U.W. engineers who’d rather live here, where taxes and home prices are lower, even if mist and dark skies envelop the scenery for much of the year …

“In a conference room at the university, overlooking the sparkling waters of Lake Washington, Christophe Bisciglia told a crowd of dozens of students what his secret weapon was: them.

UW CSE undergraduate lab (Stuart Isett photo)

“Mr. Bisciglia, 31, an entrepreneur and former star Google engineer, was visiting during the spring to speak on a panel about start-ups to computer science students.  He said he has gained an ‘unfair advantage’ for WibiData, his new San Francisco-based company, by recruiting from the university’s computer science department, where two-thirds of his employees once studied.

“‘Down in the Valley, it’s all Stanford this and that,’ said Mr. Bisciglia, himself a U.W. graduate. ‘While they turn out students that are good, U.W. turns out students that are every bit as good.’ …

“Sidhant Gupta, a Ph.D. student in computer science, is working on low-cost sensing technologies that can help people monitor their energy use. Mr. Gupta, who received his master’s degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said U.W. is a collegial environment where experts in different computer science disciplines are encouraged to collaborate.

“‘It feels like one big family,’ said Mr. Gupta, who passed up offers at M.I.T. and other schools to study at Washington. ‘No one is trying to back-stab you to get ahead of you. That’s really different than other programs.'”

Read the article here.   More Stuart Isett photos here. Read more →

On Friday June 29, a group of middle school girls spent the morning in UW CSE, followed by an afternoon visit to Amazon.com.  In UW CSE, the students were hosted by Crystal Eney, Caitlin Harding, and Victoria Wagner, and participated in activities including “Computer Science Unplugged” (Allison Obourn), sustainability sensing (Eric Larson), and computer security (Karl Koscher).

The girls were participating in G2CS – Girls Gather for Computer Science – a 4-week summer program. Read more →

Since its inception in 2002, the awards presented by India Abroad – the oldest and most widely-circulated Indian-American weekly newspaper – have become the most coveted community honor in the country, celebrating achievements across a wide spectrum.

This year’s winner in the “Face Of The Future” category is UW CSE and EE professor Shwetak Patel, “For being a technological genius; for developing innovative sensor systems for improving daily life; and for being a brilliant, young visionary.”

Read a terrific article on Shwetak, his life, and his accomplishments here.  Video of Shwetak’s acceptance speech here.

Congratulations Shwetak! Read more →

Tom Anderson, Robert E. Dinning Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2013 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award, “For contributions to understanding and improving the performance, reliability, and security of the Internet.”

The Kobayashi Award, established in 1986, is the top international award in the networking field, and its recipients are a “Who’s Who” of contributors – recently including Jean Walrand, Larry Peterson, Nick McKeown, Don Towsley, Nick Maxemchuk, Frank Kelly, and Van Jacobsen.

Congratulations Tom! Read more →

On June 28, more than 100 UW CSE alums joined faculty members Gaetano Borriello, Luis Ceze, Steve Gribble, Dan Grossman, and Ed Lazowska for a reception at the California Academy of Sciences.

Keep in touch – follow CSE online! Read more →