Allen School News

“With the nation’s fastest-growing economy and an all-star business roster of household names and up-and-comers, Washington — the Evergreen State — soars above the competition as America’s Top State for Business in 2017.

“The home of Amazon and Costco, Boeing and Expedia, as well as rising stars like Adaptive Biotechnologies, online marketplace OfferUp and space company Blue Origin, Washington has the old and new economies covered — as well as pretty much everything in between.

“But the success story does not end there. At a time when the best workforce rules, Washington boasts the nation’s largest concentration of STEM (science, technology, education and math) workers. Nearly 1 in every 10 Washington workers is in those professions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The University of Washington’s computer science school — recently named for one of the state’s most famous natives, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen — is world class. There is no brain drain here; no state does better at hanging on to its college graduates. And the state is consistently a magnet for investment capital. Washington businesses attracted nearly $1.6 billion in venture capital last year, the sixth-highest total in the nation.” Read more →

Check out the live webcams here, here, and here. Learn about the project here. Read more →

Many thanks to our friends at GeekWire for posting this video of the 2017 graduation ceremony of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering!

• Welcome
• Rich Barton’s address to the graduates
• Bachelor of Science Processional
• Presentation of student awards
  • ACM Student Chapter Teaching Award
  • Undergraduate Service Award
  • Outstanding Undergraduate Honors Thesis Award
  • Outstanding Computer Science and Computer Engineering Senior Awards
  • Bob Bandes Memorial Excellence in Teaching Awards
• Master of Science Processional
• Presentation of Alumni Achievement Awards
• Hooding of Doctor of Philosophy Recipients

(The entire ceremony, from the start of the welcome to the end of the hooding, is 1:25.) Read more →

The 2017 graduation ceremony of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering will be livestreamed – 6:00 p.m. on Friday June 9, beginning with an address to the graduates by Zillow Group co-founder and Executive Chairman Rich Barton. Other highlights include presentation of the 2017 Alumni Achievement Awards to A.J. Brush (Ph.D. ’02) and Hakim Weatherspoon (B.S., ’99), various other awards, the procession of Bachelors and Masters graduates, and the hooding of Bachelors graduates.

Watch at https://www.youtube.com/uwcse!

Read more →

This evening, Amazon Professor of Machine Learning Emily Fox was recognized by the Seattle chapter of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) with their 2017 Award for Scientific Achievement in STEM.

AWIS writes: “Emily is an expert in machine learning and a leading researcher in redefining the scope and nature of applied statistics. She is a leader in developing computationally realistic modeling tools for complex data sets. In addition to teaching and advising at the University of Washington, she co-created an online course about machine learning. She was recently recognized by President Obama with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Emily fosters the development of other women in science through her visible success and being approachable and available as a mentor and counselor.”

Congratulations Emily! Read more →

Richard Ladner and some of his students who joined the dinner in his honor. Back row: Sangyun Hahn, Kevin Zatloukal, Albert Greenberg, Richard Ladner, Shiri Azenkot, Catherine Baker, Danielle Bragg, Jeff Bigham, Soma Chaudhuri. Middle row: Lauren Milne, Anna Cavender, Cynthia Bennett. Front row: Anne Condon, Shaun Kane, Jessica Tran.

Richard Ladner joined the Computer Science Group at the University of Washington in 1971 – 45 years ago this past fall.

Richard was first a leader in theoretical computer science and then a leader in accessibility. He has supervised or co-supervised 27 Ph.D. students with 4 more in the pipeline. He has also supervised the research of more than 100 undergraduate students, 23 of whom won Mary Gates Research Scholarships, and 2 who won CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards. He served as Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) from 2005-2009. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University from 2007-2016. He is a recipient of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) and the 2008 A. Nico Habermann Award. He is the winner of the 2014 SIGCHI Social Impact Award and 2016 SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. He is an ACM Fellow and an IEEE Fellow. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1986 and Fulbright Scholar in 1993. At the University of Washington he received the Boeing Professorship in Computer Science & Engineering (2004-2012), the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award (2010), the Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture Award (2010), and the University of Washington Outstanding Service Award (2009).

On Friday we celebrated his career on the occasion of his retirement, first with a valedictory lecture, and then with a dinner in his honor.

Richard’s former students are establishing the Richard Ladner Endowed Graduate Fellowship in his honor: “to support students studying accessible technology in the Allen School, the Information School or the College of Engineering, or students with disabilities in those schools and colleges whose research focus is a field within computer science.” If you would like to support the Ladner Fellowship, you can find information here.

A profile of Richard, excerpted from the Summer 2017 issue of CSE’s newsletter Most Significant Bits, is here.

The slides from Richard’s valedictory lecture, “My 45+ Years at UW,” are available in pptx and pdf. The talk announcement (with a link to the video) is here. Read more →

“Shyam Gollakota envisions a future in which his research and technological breakthroughs will transform computing as we know it. It’s a powerful prediction, and it’s based on the consumption of less power.

“Gollakota, a co-founder of Jeeva Wireless and an assistant professor in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, is a leader in the field of wireless networking. He was named one of MIT Technology Review’s innovators under 35 in 2014; part of the Popular Science “Brilliant 10” in 2016; and was among the Forbes “30 under 30” in 2015 and 2017.

“While those all sound pretty fancy, we’re here to name him GeekWire’s latest Geek of the Week.”

Shyam joins previous Allen School “Geeks of the Week” Irene Zhang, Karan Goel, Carlos Guestrin, Julie Kientz, Melissa Winstanley, Lauren Bricker, Yaw Anokwa, Wendy Chisholm, and Marty Stepp, as well as 2012 “Geek of the Year” Oren Etzioni and 2017 “Geek of the Year” Ed Lazowska.

We got geek! Read more here. Read more →

Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer, received the UW College of Engineering “Dean’s Award” at the 2017 Diamond Awards celebration on Friday.

Brad was nominated by the Allen School as “a national and international leader in the establishment of visionary technology policies … a tireless and hugely effective advocate for STEM education (and particularly engineering education) in our state and across the nation … [and] an extraordinary friend of the University of Washington.”

Congratulations Brad, and thank you for all you have done!

Read more about Brad and the other 2017 Diamond Award recipients here. Read more →

Allen School faculty Adam Blank and Justin Hsia debate who is worse at dodging cream pies

Memo to self: Next year, avoid sticking head in cotton candy machine

The weather gods once again cooperated, giving us a spectacular Friday afternoon for the 2017 Allen School ACM Student Chapter spring picnic. Classes end on June 2; the Allen School graduation celebration is June 9. Read more →

Mike Cafarella, Raphael Hoffmann, Chris Re

Machine learning startup Lattice Data, co-founded by Allen School Ph.D. alums Mike Cafarella (2009, advised by Oren Etzioni and Dan Suciu), Raphael Hoffmann (2012, advised by Dan Weld and Luke Zettlemoyer), and Chris Re (2009, advised by Dan Suciu), was acquired by Apple.

Frits Habermann

And Allen School Masters alum Frits Habermann (1990, advised by David Notkin, who had been advised by Frits’ father Nico on his 1983 CMU Ph.D.) was promoted to CEO of PicMonkey, where he was formerly CTO and CPO.

Congratulations one and all! Read more →