Gabe Cohn
GeekWire reports on the UW CSE Affiliates meeting:
“Maybe this is a commentary on my own bad habits, but WalkType was one my personal favorites among some 70 projects on display last night during an open house and poster session at the department’s annual Industrial Affiliates meeting. The annual Madrona Prize, handed out by Madrona Venture Group, went to UW student Gabe Cohn and the “Humantenna” project, which uses a receiver on the human body to determine a person’s position in relation to electrical noise emanating from a home’s wiring system.”
Read the full post here. Read more →
Paul Beame describes recent curricular revisions - very well received by Affiliates
Greg Gottesman congratulates Franzi Roesner, runner-up for the annual Madrona Prize for research
Greg Gottesman congratulates Gabe Cohn, winner of the annual Madrona Prize for research
Hank Levy congratulates Nicki Dell, winner of the People's Choice prize for research (provided by Madrona Venture Group)
MacArthur Award winner Shwetak Patel describes his research
Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO of EMC, receives a Husky football jersey following his keynote address
UW CSE annually hosts a day of research presentations for members of our Affiliates program, capped by an evening of posters and demos to which we also invite regional alumni and friends. More than 100 Affiliates spent the day with us today, and more than 100 alumni and friends joined them this evening. Many Bruce Hemingway photos here and here. Read more →
We hear you – you’re thinking “Geez, haven’t we read enough about Shwetak this week/month/year?”
But how can you possibly resist an article that refers to Shwetak as “The 29-year-old boffin” and “A relative stripling”???
Gotta love those Brits! Read it here. Read more →
Shame on us. On first reading, we only noticed Shwetak Patel as a CSE family member recognized by Seattle Magazine in its annual “Most Influential” feature. But Seattle Schools activist Melissa Westbrook, wife of long-time CSE faculty member Gaetano Borriello, is there too!
“Tenacious, persistent and prescient: The bloggers behind one of Seattle’s feistiest public-interest websites (saveseattleschools.blogspot.com) have been called that, and more… ‘What I see as our biggest success is that we have become a source used by parents, staff and community for Seattle schools’ news,’ says Westbrook, a former PTA copresident and school board committee member. ‘We break stories and write stories that readers know they won’t find anywhere else.'”
Read the writeup on Melissa here and the full article here. Read more →
Every year, Seattle Magazine recognizes a handful of individuals in its “Most Influential” feature. This year, UW CSE’s Shwetak Patel is among those recognized:
“Imagine if the amount of energy used by your home was broadcast to you like a traffic sign flashing a car’s speed to a rushed driver. Thanks to a soon-to-be-released technology using sensors developed by Zensi, an energy-monitoring startup founded by University of Washington assistant professor and 2011 MacArthur Fellow Shwetak Patel, consumers will soon be able to monitor how much electricity, water and gas their homes use—right down to a gas-guzzling heater or water-wasting spigot.”
Read the writeup on Shwetak here and the full article here. Read more →
On Sunday, the National Academy of Engineering inducted UW CSE’s Hank Levy as one of 68 Members of the Class of 2011. Hank was recognized “For contributions to the design, implementation, and evaluation of operating systems, distributed systems, and processor architectures.”
Other newly-inducted Members of NAE Section 5 (Computer Science & Engineering) are Susan Dumais (Microsoft Research), Daphne Koller (Stanford), Jitendra Malik (UC Berkeley), Nick McKeown (Stanford), Don Norman (Northwestern), Ari Requischa (USC), Fred Schneider (Cornell), and Mihalis Yannakakis (Columbia).
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Hank joins UW CSE’s Susan Eggers and Ed Lazowska as NAE Members.
Congratulations Hank! Read more →
The big news from Husky Stadium on Saturday was not the Washington Huskies’ 52-24 victory over the Colorado Buffaloes. (Three cheers for league expansion!) Nope – it was the on-the-field and on-the-scoreboard recognition of UW CSE’s Stuart Reges for his receipt of the 2011 University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award.
Congratulations Stuart! Read more →
“Most Americans don’t have a clue how much electricity or water each of their household appliances or fixtures uses on any given day. If they did, they might be surprised. Moreover, they also might change their habits.”
Read the full post here. Read more →
F
aculty members Stuart Reges and Hélène Martin and students Chris Dentel, Maia Szafer, and Melissa Winstanley are featured in this months UW University Honors Program Departmental Honors Spotlight.
Stuart: “Students are pleasantly surprised to find that computer science thinking can provide deep insights into mathematics, philosophy, language, culture, literature, and understanding the human condition.”
Hélène: “We’ve put a lot of work into making our introductory courses both intellectually satisfying and approachable to students of all kinds of different backgrounds. We believe the big ideas they present and the skills they build are great additions to any honor student’s education.”
Chris: “Even more important is to be able to understand how your field can be used in other emerging and expanding disciplines. The honors section for CSE 143 introduced this to me, and I believe that anyone from any background would enjoy and thrive in this class.”
Maia: “By teaching students to ask strategic question and reason through the implications of solutions, [computer science] becomes the vehicle through which they develop as critical thinkers and learn to solve problems in a variety of different contexts.”
Melissa: “The community of peers and teachers that I became a part of beginning in the introductory Honors programming course has been and continues to be instrumental in making my experience at UW fun and exciting.”
Read it here. Read more →
BusinessWeek
reports on how research by a team led by UW Computer Science & Engineering professor Yoshi Kohno and UC San Diego professor (and UW CSE alum) Stefan Savage has led engineers at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) to launch a project to harden automotive command and control systems. The research has shown that it’s possible to compromise critical automotive systems such as braking and engine functions without physical access to the vehicle.
Two paths towards such control are the Bluetooth wireless network used for hands-free use of a mobile phone, and via the telematics systems such as OnStar and (F) SYNC. Attacks via Bluetooth require close proximity to the vehicle, but attacks via telematics systems, which are based on the public switched telephone system and linked cellular mobile phone system, can be executed from anywhere in the world. The Kohno/Savage team has demonstrated that vulnerability by unlocking and starting a standard vehicle from half a continent away.
The SAE project will develop new standards to prevent such attacks, but security is a process, not a product, and the process will be ongoing.
The full text of the article in BusinessWeek is here. We’ve previously reported on the automotive security research here and here. Read more →
