Allen School News

Irene Zhang is UW CSE’s Geek of the Year, but we’ll settle for GeekWire’s Geek of the Week:

“I’m really a Midwestern girl at heart.” (Give me a break!)

“I do research in distributed programming platforms for mobile/cloud applications. Application programmers today are writing code that runs on mobile device and cloud servers, so they are really tackling a lot of hard distributed systems problems. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google have figured out how to build these kinds of applications, but those lessons have not really made it into general-purpose systems that help the average application programmer. So, my research is on how to eliminate the need for programmers to tackle these tough distributed systems problems. I want to make it possible to build the next generation Facebook-scale application in a few hours, not a few years.” (We can get behind that!)

“I’m also inspired by Barbara Liskov, my undergraduate advisor at MIT. She was the first woman to get a Ph.D. in computer science and now has a Turing award, but she has some amazing stories from being a woman so early in the field.” (A giant of the field!)

“We’re just scratching the surface of what computer science can accomplish, so it’s a pretty great time to be a geek!” (Amen!)

Previous UW CSE “Geeks of the Week”: Karan Goel, Carlos Guestrin, Julie Kientz, Melissa Winstanley, Oren Etzioni (also 2012’s “Geek of the Year”), Lauren Bricker, Yaw Anokwa, Wendy Chisholm, and Marty Stepp. We got geek!

Read more here. Read more →

“So what distinguishes the UW from other Washington schools? Aside from its obvious geographical advantage of being smack dab in the center of a global tech hub, the University has made use of several strategies to routinely get its grads into top-notch jobs. ‘The University has been tuning its computer science curriculum to the needs of software development companies for decades now,’ says [Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) CEO Michael] Schutzler.

“The challenging curriculum and internship program also play a big role. ‘Most students do summer internships at leading-edge companies – and they can do this without relocating,’ Ed Lazowska, the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair of UW’s Computer Science & Engineering Department, wrote in an email. ‘This, plus the capstone design courses at the end of their senior year, makes them industry-ready.’

“The UW also makes use of what’s called the Industry Affiliates Program, that gives students a sneak peek at the industry while allowing companies to start recruiting top talent early. More than 100 companies, including the likes of Google and Facebook, are part of the program, which offers resume workshops and practice interviews to help prepare students for future careers.”

Read more here. Read more →

The annual UW CSE holiday party is always a fun event for students, staff, and faculty. And then there’s the faculty skit … “rehearsal” shots below …

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A nice series of articles in the Seattle Times explains cloud computing and describes Seattle’s leading role.

“‘In general, there is someone who can deliver you electricity more reliably and less expensively than you can generate it yourself,’ said Ed Lazowska, a University of Washington computer scientist. ‘What’s happening now is most of us are increasingly relying on utilities, be it Amazon, or Microsoft or Google, to give us the computing we need.’

“In other words, the power of the technology at your fingertips no longer depends on how powerful of a PC you bought for your den or the number of servers blinking in the backroom where you work.

“All you need is a credit card, which can give you access to the power and technology that enables everything from your corporate email account to a supercomputer.”

First article here. Second article here. More to come! Read more →

It’s the men and women of UW Facilities Services who keep the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering looking great and working great. This year 150 of them turned out for our annual holiday “Shops Appreciation Luncheon” – 130 from the day crew at noon, and 20 from the night crew at 5:30.

Many thanks to all the great folks at UW Facilities Services who make it possible for those of us in CSE to focus on computer science! Read more →

“In his 25 years at Microsoft, Bjorn Rettig has never felt compelled to offer someone a job during an informational interview. But that all changed after he met Kasey Champion …

“For Champion, who just celebrated her fourth anniversary with the company, joining Rettig’s team has been the fulfillment of everything she’s worked toward at Microsoft. She’s able to combine her passion for teaching and her enthusiasm for computer science. In fact, Champion’s talk at this year’s Grace Hopper conference was entitled ‘Technology and Education: Combining Your Two Passions into One Career.'”

(Kasey was recently back at UW CSE participating in a reunion of undergraduate teaching assistants.)

Read more here. Read more →

UW CSE’s introductory courses have seen extraordinary growth in size and in quality – growth that’s powered by an amazing corps of undergraduate teaching assistants.

More than 150 current and former CSE142 and CSE143 undergraduate TAs participated in a reunion event in the Paul G. Allen Center on November 22nd. A timeline created for the event highlighted how much the program has changed in the last ten years.

In the fall of 2006, CSE142 had 425 students and CSE143 had 209 students, supported by 30 undergraduate TAs. For the current fall quarter, CSE142 has 1,081 students and CSE143 has 537 students supported by 76 undergraduate TAs. The growth in enrollment by women has been even more impressive: in fall 2006, 27% of the students in CSE142 and 18% in CSE143 were women, versus 35% in CSE142 and 25% in CSE143 today.

Speakers at the reunion event included Stuart Reges, who created the undergraduate TA program at UW, Victoria Kirst, who was a TA and student instructor at UW and is now teaching at Stanford, and current 14X TA coordinators Shannon Ren and Karanbir Singh, who put in incredible effort to create a fun activity for members of the community – both past and present – to come together. Former 14X TA coordinators Alex Miller, Hillary Prather, Kasey Champion, Michael Schmitz, Riley Porter, Tyler Rigsby, and Whitaker Brand also joined the event.

Reges highlighted how special the UW undergrad TA program is because most universities do not offer such a rich opportunity for undergraduates to become partners in the teaching of introductory computer science. Singh reminded attendees of how attractive the undergraduate TA program has become with over 200 applicants for fewer than 30 new spots in the most recent round of hiring.

Reges also pointed out the impressive list of former undergraduate 14X TAs who have gone on to be hired as college faculty including:

• Kurtis Heimerl – assistant professor in UW CSE
• Peter Michael Osera – assistant professor at Grinnell College
• Helene Martin – former lecturer in UW CSE
• Victoria Kirst – lecturer at Stanford
• Allison Obourn – former lecturer in UW CSE, now at the University of Arizona
• Whitaker Brand – teacher of multiple UW CSE courses
• Zorah Fung – lecturer in UW CSE
• Riley Porter- lecturer in UW CSE
• Ryan Parsons – faculty at Whatcom Community College

One of the main reasons the program has produced so many college level instructors is that UW encourages undergraduates who have been TAs to complete the fifth year Masters program and teach one of the courses in the summer. Few major computer science programs have pathways like this that encourage students to prepare for and consider a career in teaching.

Former UW CSE lecturer Marty Stepp was unable to attend the program, but several speakers mentioned his many contributions. Stepp came out of a similar undergraduate TA program at the University of Arizona and helped Reges create the program at UW. He also put in substantial effort to shape the 14X courses, creating tools known as GradeIt and PracticeIt. Stepp now teaches at Stanford University.

The timeline for the program appropriately lists course administrator Pim Lustig as appearing at the beginning of time as he has been a crucial source of support before anyone else on the list even came to UW.

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Not UW CSE alum Peter Brook …

Peter Brook spent his undergraduate days in Joshua Smith’s Sensor Systems Laboratory and at Facebook. In 2013 he took his newly-minted Computer Engineering bachelors degree to Vergence Labs, where he was lead software engineer on Epiphany Eyewear – fashion-conscious eyewear that captures video snippets with the touch of a button. Vergence was acquired by Snapchat, where Peter has led the software side of Snap Spectacles from early prototypes through mass production.

Snap Spectacles have now hit the big time – sold through popup vending machines in Southern California, and soon near you! Read a Wired article here.

Congratulations Peter! Read more →

WiBotic CEO Ben Waters

“From the brick walkways of Pioneer Square to the funky facades of Fremont, there’s a lot of startup action in Seattle.

“So trying to identify the 10 hottest entrepreneurial ventures in the region is no easy task. But that’s what we’ve set out to do with this year’s class of The Seattle 10, which we’re hosting again in partnership with the Museum of History & Industry …

“We’re putting our entrepreneurs to work, asking each of The Seattle 10 winners to reproduce their business ideas on giant six-foot by six-foot cocktail napkins that will be unveiled for the first time at the GeekWire Gala on Dec. 7th at MOHAI.”

In 2013, CSE startup SNUPI was among The Seattle 10. In 2014, CSE startup GraphLab was among The Seattle 10. This year, it’s CSE+EE startup WiBotic, out of the Sensor Systems Laboratory of UW CSE+EE professor Joshua Smith. WiBotic provides reliable wireless power to charge aerial, mobile and aquatic robot systems.

Read about all of The Seattle 10 in GeekWire here. Read more →

“Daphna Khen happily described her normal workday to a prospective Zillow job candidate Thursday at the University of Washington …

“Yes, there are many opportunities to learn different skills. Senior engineers offer ‘office hours,’ and everyone Khen asks is happy to help out troubleshooting any issue.

“Job seekers at the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) recruiting fair generally don’t ask Khen about salary or vacation days or health benefits. They’re more interested in how she likes her job and the projects she works on.

“Many know their degrees all but guarantee them a job with high pay and good perks, but they really want to know if they’ll like it.

“Hundreds of UW computer science students attended the packed recruiting fair Thursday, one of two this week where companies set up colorful booths to market their job openings.”

Read the full article here.

Photo credit: Johnny Andrews/The Seattle Times Read more →