Allen School News

In a front page article, the New York Times reports on booming interest in computer science across the nation.

“The new curriculums emphasize the breadth of careers that use computer science, as diverse as finance and linguistics, and the practical results of engineering, like iPhone apps, Pixar films and robots …

“Still, computer science graduates do not come close to filling the jobs available. Technology is one of the few bright spots in the economy, with jobs growing at double the rate of job growth over all, according to federal statistics …

“At Stanford, which has never lacked computer science students, majors nearly doubled after a new curriculum in 2008 let students choose a focus, like artificial intelligence. At the University of Washington, enrollment in the introductory computer science course is at a record high of 1,700. At Harvard, the size of the introductory computer science class has nearly quadrupled in five years …

“‘What we’re seeing now is a better-motivated upsurge,’ said Ed Lazowska, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, ‘students who understand that they really need to know this material.’”

Read the terrific New York Times article here.  Related background here, here, and here. Read more →

Today at the annual University of Washington awards ceremony, Stuart Reges was recognized with the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.  And he even wore a tie!

Congratulations, Stuart.  And, a million thanks for your extraordinary accomplishments with our introductory sequence. Read more →

UW Today published a special supplement, highlighting recipients of the 2011 UW Awards of Excellence.  As reported earlier, UW CSE’s Stuart Reges has won this year’s University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award, which is given to faculty who show “a mastery of their subject matter, intellectual rigor and a passion for teaching.”

Congratulations again to Stuart!

Full UW Today special award edition here. Read more →

“A Study of Skew in MapReduce Applications,” a paper describing the causes and manifestations of skew in MapReduce applications with best practice recommendations to avoid such behavior, has received the “Best Student Paper” award at the Open Cirrus Summit 2011.  The paper was authored by UW CSE graduate student YongChul Kwon, UW CSE faculty members Magda Balazinska and Bill Howe, and Jerome Rolia from HP Labs.  Open Cirrus is an open cloud-computing research testbed designed to support research into the design, provisioning, and management of services at a global, multi-datacenter scale.

Congratulations!

More information about the SkewReduce project may be viewed here.  The paper may be read here. Read more →

US News, in a May 31 article, identifies 9 major companies who are recruiting like crazy.  Many have a  big Seattle presence, including:

“1. Boeing. The company … plans to hire a total of 4,000 to 5,000 employees this year … The bulk of those positions are located in the Puget Sound region … Boeing’s looking first and foremost for engineers … ‘We look for individuals who have a passion for technology and innovation’ … The company is also hiring about 1,000 interns this year.

“2. Google. The Internet giant is hiring more employees this year than any other, including its record of 6,000 hires in 2007 … While the bulk of those positions are located at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., other offices are also growing significantly, including those in Seattle and New York City … ‘We’re looking for people who are leaders in their schools … We want people that everyone’s going to want to work with.’

“6. Amazon. On Amazon’s website, the online marketplace lists positions open in product management, sales, and software development.

“8. Facebook. The company … lists hundreds of openings on its website. Facebook is looking for recruiters, salespeople, data analysts, engineers, business associates, and more.”


Read the US News article here.

Separately, NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, reports that Computer Science is the major with the top offer rate for the Class of 2011 – see here.

And the Wall Street Journal reports “Bay Area Technology Firms Put Down Roots in Seattle” – see here. Read more →

A GeekWire post on UW CSE’s EnerJ project, to be presented next week at PLDI:

“University of Washington researchers have come up with a way to reduce energy consumption in computers and mobile devices by 50 percent or more by segmenting software code into areas that require high levels of accuracy — and therefore high levels of energy — and those that don’t.”

Read the GeekWire post here.  Read the PLDI paper here.  Read a UW press release on the work here.  ACM TechNews here.

And don’t miss the Engadget post with numerous reader comments about Luis Ceze’s resemblance to Harry Potter and other luminaries, here. Read more →

MerchantCircle, co-founded by UW CSE alum Wayne Yamamoto, has been acquired by Reply! Inc.   MerchantCircle is the largest online network of local business owners in the nation, combining social networking features with free marketing tools that enable merchants to maximize their online visibility.  Press release here. Read more →

Geoff Voelker and Stefan Savage purchase Viagra for science

An editorial in today’s New York Times follows up on an article ten days ago describing work led by UW CSE Ph.D. alums Stefan Savage and Geoff Voelker.  Savage, Voelker, and 13 collaborators carry out an end-to-end analysis of the spam value chain, and determine that 95% of spam-advertised pharmaceutical, replica and software products are monetized using merchant services from just a handful of banks.

The New York Times editorial states:  “The Times’s John Markoff reported that computer scientists at two University of California campuses have found another vulnerability:  spammers’ banks.  To track the flow of information, the researchers made hundreds of purchases.  Buying Viagra from the Pharmacy Express group in Russia involved computers in Brazil, China and Turkey.  The Viagra came from India.  But 95 percent of the purchases were handled by three banks — in Azerbaijan, Latvia and St. Kitts and Nevis.  This suggests that if banks or credit card companies refused to settle payments for some transactions with these banks, they could deliver a blow to the spam economy.  After Congress moved to suppress online gambling, Visa and Mastercard blocked payments for American players.  Similarly, Congress might require them to block, say, card-not-present pharmaceutical purchases on the grounds that it is illegal for individuals to import drugs.  Though spammers might be able to change banks, the process would be cumbersome.  The concentration of business in three banks suggests there aren’t that many willing to deal with spammers.  It’s certainly worth pursuing.”

Read the New York Times editorial here.  Read John Markoff’s New York Times article here.  The Oakland paper by Savage, Voelker, and their collaborators is here.  NPR interview with Savage here. Read more →

Will Johnson, a senior majoring in Computer Science and in Mathematics, has been awarded the 2011 UW College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Medal for the Sciences, recognizing the most accomplished graduating student in the natural sciences.

Will has a remarkable record of accomplishment and recognition:  he recently won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship; he was celebrated in the Washington State Senate and in the Seattle Times for being named a Putnam Fellow (for finishing among the top five students in the nation — from among 4,036 competitors — in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition); he was named the 2010 University of Washington Junior Medalist, recognizing the most accomplished student among UW’s roughly 7,000 juniors.  (No reason to go back further than 12 months …)

Will is the 13th CSE student to be recognized with a UW Dean’s Medal.  Most recently, Eric Arendt received the 2010 Dean’s Medal in Engineering, Kathy Wei received the 2009 Dean’s Medal in Engineering, and Pavan Vaswani received the 2009 Dean’s Medal in the Sciences.  Sixteen CSE students have been University Medalists.  Most recently, Krysta Yousoufian received the 2010 Junior Medal, Mark Bun received the 2009 Sophomore Medal (when Will received the Junior Medal), and Pavan Vaswani received the 2009 President’s Medal (recognizing the most accomplished graduating student at the University of Washington).

Congratulations to Will, and to all of CSE’s terrific students – UW’s best! Read more →

ACM TechNews and ITBusinessEdge have both picked up UW CSE professor Ed Lazowska’s recent Xconomy article on the Computer Science job market.

“Meanwhile, in this post at Xconomy, Lazowska reports that his seniors are being offered salaries straight out of college as high as $105,000. The emails he quotes in that piece will just blow you away at the opportunities these kids are offered, such as this:

“‘I’m a senior who transferred to UW from Shoreline Community College. My employment history is zilch – a little retail, that’s it. Yet [top tech company] offered me a $30/hr internship just based on the fact that I’m in UW CSE.’

“And this one:

“‘Last summer I worked for [top tech company] in Seattle. At some point I realized that they had offices in awesome cities all over the world: Sydney, Dublin, Zurich, Paris, London. I told the recruiters I wanted to work at one of these offices. They were able to secure me a position in London. I’ve always wanted to study abroad, but I was worried how well it would fit with computer science. As it turns out, I got a better deal than studying abroad: working abroad.'”

Meanwhile, Xconomy reports today on a new study by the job search site Dice ranking Seattle among the top cities for tech workforce crunch, here. Read more →