Allen School News

Members of the Allen School’s Theory of Computation group earned two Best Paper Awards at the 53rd annual Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2021) last week for achieving a pair of “firsts” that advanced the state of the art in approximation algorithms and cryptography, respectively. One of the winning papers, co-authored by Allen School Ph.D. student Nathan Klein and professors Anna Karlin and Shayan Oveis Gharan, produced the first improvement on the Traveling Salesperson Problem in more than… Read more →

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What if you could engage with the world — go to class, do your job, meet up with friends, get a workout in — without leaving the comfort of your bedroom thanks to mixed-reality technology?  What if you could customize your avatar in many ways, but you couldn’t make it reflect your true racial or cultural identity? What if the best way to get a high-paying job was based on your access to this technology, only you are blind and… Read more →

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Paul Beame, an associate director of the Allen School and a professor in the Theory of Computation group, has been honored with the 2021 ACM SIGACT Distinguished Service Award for his more than 20 years of dedicated and effective support to the theoretical computer science community. Each year, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory presents the award to an individual or group who has gone above and beyond in service to… Read more →

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Yasaman Sefidgar, a Ph.D. student working with Allen School professor James Fogarty, has been named a 2021 Facebook Fellow for her research developing computational and data-driven systems that inform and support social and health interventions. Sefidgar’s work currently is focused on studying the powerful effects of social support and how to make it more accessible with online platforms, especially during difficult times. Sefidgar aims to use her Fellowship to understand the emotional needs of people online — specifically… Read more →

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Last week marked the end of an academic year unlike any other — and the culmination of all of the hard work, hopes and dreams of a graduating class unlike any other. With the resumption of in-person pomp and circumstance precluded due to ongoing pandemic-related restrictions at the University of Washington, the Allen School marked this important milestone with a virtual tribute highlighting the Class of 2021’s commitment to excellence and service — and acknowledging their perseverance in… Read more →

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Researchers at the University of Washington contributed to four Best Papers and 11 Best Paper Honorable Mentions at the recent Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021) organized by the Association for Computing Machinery. The virtual conference offered UW researchers the opportunity to showcase the breadth and depth of their expertise in human-computer interaction (HCI) and design as well as the strength of interdisciplinary collaborations such as DUB. Members of the Allen School co-authored two of the… Read more →

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Allen School professor Richard Anderson earned the ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics from the Association for Computing Machinery for his work bridging computer science, education and global health. Anderson, who co-directs the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) Lab, has devoted himself over the past two decades to advancing computing innovations that improve quality of life for people in rural and low-income communities around the… Read more →

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Allen School Ph.D. student Ashish Sharma, professor Tim Althoff and incoming Ph.D. student Inna Lin won the Best Paper Award at the The Web Conference 2021 (WWW) for “Towards Facilitating Empathic Conversations in Online Mental Health Support: A Reinforcement Learning Approach.” In the paper, the group presented computational methods for improving empathy in online mental health support conversations. Their work was chosen from among 1,736 submissions to the conference, which… Read more →

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Each year, the University of Washington College of Engineering recognizes the dedication and drive of its students, teaching and research assistants, staff and faculty by honoring a select few with a College of Engineering Award. This year, the Allen School has three recipients: web computing specialist Della Welch won the Professional Staff Award, professor Linda Shapiro earned the College of Engineering Faculty Research Award and professor and alumnus Jon Froelich (Ph.D., 11) received the College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty… Read more →

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Artificial intelligence promises to be a powerful tool for improving the speed and accuracy of medical decision-making to improve patient outcomes. From diagnosing disease, to personalizing treatment, to predicting complications from surgery, AI could become as integral to patient care in the future as imaging and laboratory tests are today.  But as Allen School researchers discovered, AI models — like humans — have a tendency to look for shortcuts. In the case of… Read more →

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