Western Washington University has placed its Computer Science Department on the chopping block in a budget reduction effort.
This move seems particularly goofy – even by the standards of education policy in Washington State – given the extreme demand for computer science graduates regionally and nationally, the fine record of WWU’s program, the fact that major programs such as those at the University of Washington, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon are reporting all-time-record student interest, and reports that newly-minted University of Washington graduates are receiving salary offers north of $100K and signing bonuses as high as $30K. You’ve gotta wonder what programs WWU’s leadership is choosing to preserve while threatening to axe Computer Science. “What will they think of next?”
The 1,000 attendees at yesterday’s “State of Technology” luncheon in downtown Seattle – which included the Governor, her Secretary of Commerce, and Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra – were dazed and amazed when Technology Alliance Chair Jeremy Jaech read the GeekWire headline from the stage.
Read the GeekWire post here.
Update: We received a “form email” response from WWU’s VP for University Relations. It’s a full page of administrative gibberish. Or, as our Webmaster said, “Must … Take … Shower …” We recommend not bothering with it, but if you need late-night entertainment, it’s here. Read more →
Ed Lazowska interviews Aneesh Chopra at the Technology Alliance luncheon (Annie Laurie Malarkey photo)
Aneesh Chopra, the Federal Chief Technology Officer, was interviewed by UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska at the Technology Alliance “State of Technology” luncheon on Tuesday.
From GeekWire: “Chopra discussed everything from how to increase the number of women entrepreneurs to the expansion of broadband services to President Obama’s policy on net neutrality to cybersecurity efforts. But it was Chopra’s passion for the entrepreneurial process which stood out.”
Chopra also participated in roundtables with regional tech leaders on “Innovation in Customer Relations,” “Innovation in Global Health,” and “Innovation in Cloud Computing,” and visited Microsoft, PATH, and the Institute for Systems Biology.
Read the GeekWire post here. Read more →
Shwetak Patel, a faculty member in CSE and EE, will receive a 2011 University of Washington College of Engineering “Community of Innovators” Award.
Each year, these awards recognize UW College of Engineering faculty, students, and staff who have gone “above and beyond.” Shwetak shares the Junior Faculty Innovator Award with EE’s Brian Otis.
See all the award winners here. Learn about Shwetak’s work here.
(CSE staff members Tracy Erbeck and Melody Kadenko were nominated in the professional staff category; one cannot expect perfection from the selection committee.) Read more →
Technology Review highlights work by UW CSE’s Shwetak Patel and Microsoft Research’s Desney Tan.
“Our lives are awash with ambient electromagnetic radiation, from the fields generated by power lines to the signals used to send data between Wi-Fi transmitters. Researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington have found a way to harness this radiation for a computer interface that turns any wall in a building into a touch-sensitive surface.”
Read the article here. NewScientist here. Gizmodo here. engadget here. The Reg Hardware here. Discovery News here. Read more →
Duh.
Xconomy reports on a conversation with UW Dean of Engineering (and bioengineer) Matt O’Donnell.
“Read all about it” – here. Read more →
For the 12th consecutive year, Harris Interactive has measured the reputations of the most visible companies in the United States. The technology industry continues to hold a large lead in terms of overall reputation – 75% positive vs. #2 Retail at 57% positive. Many of the companies ranked “Excellent” or “Very Good” are technology companies.
The Harris Interactive “12th Annual RQ Study” can be downloaded after registering, here. Read more →
Katie Kuksenok
Janara Christensen
The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship was launched in 2004 when a group of Googlers decided to establish a program that would honor the work of their friend and colleague Dr. Anita Borg.
UW CSE graduate students Janara Christensen and Katie Kuksenok have been named 2011 recipients.
UW CSE students recognized in previous years’ competitions include Kristi Morton, Lydia Chilton, Kyle Rector, Juliet Bernstein, Sanjana Prasain, Saleema Amershi, Julia Schwarz, Julie Letchner, Kate Everitt, Martha Mercaldi, Bao Nguyen, Michele Banko, Annie Liu, Shiri Azenkot, Jenny Yuen, and Jessica Miller.
Congratulations to Janara and Katie!
(See the Google announcement here and here.) Read more →
Computerworld highlights research by UW CSE Ph.D. student Chloe Kiddon and postdoc Yuriy Brun.
“As it turns out, identifying humour through software is hard … as the meaning of a sentence will often vary based on the context in which it is presented, and this is something that is difficult to implement in software. When you add humour and puns — when words can have multiple meanings — this can get substantially harder.
“Two researchers at the University of Washington, however, were willing to give it their best shot. In a recently released paper entitled “That’s What She Said: Double Entendre Identification”, Kiddon and Brun describe what they’ve found and introduce their new approach to the problem: ‘Double Entendre via Noun Transfer’ or DEviaNT for short.”
Read the article here. Read the research paper here.
Geekosystem article here. New York magazine here. New Scientist here. ExtremeTech here. Escapist Magazine here. Daily Mail here. Forbes here. Seattle PI here. Seattlest here. Read more →
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations program fosters creative projects that show great promise to improve the health of people in the developing world.
In the latest round of funding, Allen Wilcox of VillageReach, working with UW CSE’s Nicki Dell, Gaetano Borriello, and Linda Shapiro, received a $100,000 grant for their “Digitizing Paper-Based Data Via Mobile Image Technologies” project.
The team will refine and field test a mobile scanning application to transform paper data into a scalable digital system. Their solution could lower time and cost for data capture, improve data quality from the point of care, and provide access to the same information for all levels in the healthcare delivery system.
This is the second Gates Foundation grant that UW Change members have been involved in. The first was the Mobile Midwives Ultrasound project.
Congratulations to the VilllageReach and UW CSE team!
Puget Sound Business Journal here. VillageReach/UW CSE joint press release here. Read more →
