Jeannette Wing – head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University and former Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation for Computer and Information Science and Engineering – will move to Seattle on January 1 as Microsoft’s Vice President and Head of Microsoft Research International, reporting to Chief Research Officer Rick Rashid.
Congratulations to MSR, and warm welcome to Jeannette!
Read the Microsoft announcement here. Read more →
Nearly 50 UW CSE alums met Thursday evening at The Outlander in Fremont for happy hour. Interested in future events? Keep your eye on the UW CSE Facebook page or the UW CSE Alumni Facebook group! Read more →
In 2010, with leadership from Congressman Vernon Ehlers and Congressman Jared Polis, the US House of Representatives endorsed the week of Grace Hopper’s birthday (December 9, 1906) as Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) to recognize the critical role of computing in today’s society and the imperative to bolster computer science education at all levels. UW CSE is an active participant!
On Tuesday, Stanford economist Susan Athey delivered the third UW CSE Distinguished Lecture of the year, “Game Theory Meets Machine Learning: Designing Auction-Based Markets for Online Advertising,” co-sponsored with the Department of Economics.
Previous talks in this year’s CSE Distinguished Lecture Series: Maria Klawe (President of Harvey Mudd College) and Brad Smith (Microsoft General Counsel and Executive Vice President).
Next talk in the series: MIT professor Regina Barzilay, January 8.
Information on the talk, and video archive, here. Bruce Hemingway photographs of the event here. Read more →
GeekWire excerpts a portion of the forthcoming book “Mastery” by Robert Greene which profiles former UW CSE professor Yoky Matsuoka, now VP of Technology at Nest:
“Her mind naturally works better on a larger scale, continually pondering the connections between things on high levels— what makes the human hand so weirdly perfect, how the hand has influenced who we are and how we think. With these large questions governing her research, she avoids becoming narrowly focused on technical issues without understanding the bigger picture. Thinking on such a high level frees the mind up to investigate from all different angles: Why are the bones of the hand this way? What makes the palm so malleable? How does the sense of touch influence our thinking in general? It allows her to go deeply into the details without losing a sense of the why.”
Read the GeekWire post here.
Yoky will deliver the UW CSE colloquium on Thursday December 6 at 3:30. Read more →
This past summer, UW CSE hosted three week-long summer daycamps for secondary school students under the umbrella of our DawgBytes (“a taste of UW CSE”) outreach initiative.
On Saturday, the middle school cohort re-connected at UW, where Cheryl Platz from Microsoft provided an overview of interaction design, followed by a workshop and an activity fair coordinated by UW CSE undergraduate Emily Harmell and UW ACMS undergraduate Patricia McKenzie. (Thanks also to UW CSE undergraduates Rachel Sobel, Kevin Wallace, Nicole Ford, and Kaida Masaki – and especially to Hélène Martin, our DawgBytes coordinator.)
Photographs here. Read more →
Services were held today for Neil Eney, father of long-time UW CSE undergraduate advisor (and her father’s daughter) Crystal Eney, who passed away on October 27.
A summary of Neil’s life appears here.
Our thoughts are with Crystal, her brother Neilson, and Neil’s wife of 43 years, Page. Read more →
Anna Karlin, Microsoft Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the ACM “for contributions to algorithms and to the boundary with systems, networking, data mining, and microeconomics.”
Anna is known for contributions in the area of algorithms, especially online and randomized algorithms, and for high-impact work at the boundary between algorithms and other areas of computer science. She combines mathematical prowess with a long-standing interest and experience in building and analyzing advanced computer systems. Areas of focus have included competitive analysis of online algorithms; probabilistic algorithms and probabilistic analysis of algorithms; topics at the intersection of theory with systems, networking, and data mining; and, most recently, problems at the intersection of game theory, economics, and algorithms.
Anna is the twelfth Fellow of the ACM among active UW CSE faculty members.
Congratulations Anna! Read more →
OK, we don’t get it either, but it’s the UW Daily – a report on the selection of a team led by CSE professor Emo Todorov to participate in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
Read the UW Daily article here. Read a previous CSE News post here. Read more →
Congratulations to UW CSE emeritus professor Larry Snyder, who was named a 2012 Alumni Fellow by the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Snyder received his B.A. in 1968 in Mathematics and Economics. Snyder’s award citation reads, in part:
“Larry Snyder, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Washington, is best known for his work to promote the discipline of computer science and expand computer science education, particularly during the 1990s – a time of critical transition for the discipline … His accolades and achievements are numerous … Still, he describes the most important and rewarding accomplishment of his 46-year career as having mentored 21 doctoral students.”
Congratulations Larry! Read the citation here. Read more →