Allen School News

Allen School professors Tim Althoff and Carlos Guestrin were recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD) this week for seminal research contributions made roughly a dozen years apart. At the KDD 2019 conference held in Anchorage, Alaska, Althoff received the 2019 SIGKDD Doctoral Dissertation Award for his paper “Data Science for Human Well-being” that presented new techniques for turning data generated by… Read more →

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First-year Ph.D. student Kuikui Liu and professor Shayan Oveis Gharan of the Allen School’s Theory of Computation group earned a Best Paper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s 51st annual Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC 2019) by presenting a novel approach for counting the bases of matroids and solving a 30-year-old conjecture by Mihail and Vazirani that will have wide-ranging implications for the theory and practice of computation and mathematics.… Read more →

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Allen School professor Pedro Domingos has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the John McCarthy Award from the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). The award, which is named for one of the founders of the field of AI, recognizes established, mid-career researchers who have amassed a track record of significant research contributions that have been influential in advancing the field. Domingos is being honored by the IJCAI for his multiple contributions in machine learning and data science… Read more →

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The Allen School family is mourning the recent passing of Bob Ritchie, one of our founding faculty members who helped build the foundations of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington as we know it today. Originally from Alameda, California, Ritchie earned his bachelor’s from Reed College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University — both in Mathematics — before joining the faculty of Dartmouth College in 1960. He had a near escape when, two years later,… Read more →

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The University of Washington today announced the appointment of Magdalena Balazinska as the next director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Former Dean of Engineering Michael Bragg and UW Provost Mark Richards selected Balazinska, a professor who co-leads the Allen School’s Database and Data Science research groups, to succeed current director Hank Levy, who has overseen 13 years of growth in the school’s size, stature, and impact. “I am thrilled and deeply honored to… Read more →

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Allen School alumnus Brandon Lucia (Ph.D., ‘13) has been recognized by the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Computer Architecture with the 2019 Young Computer Architect Award. This award recognizes an outstanding researcher who has completed their doctoral degree within the past six years and who has made innovative contributions to the field of computer architecture. Lucia, who completed his Ph.D. working with… Read more →

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When someone’s heart stops beating during cardiac arrest, rapid administration of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can save that person’s life. However, a significant number of cardiac arrest incidents take place outside of a hospital setting where help may not be immediately at hand, with around 90% of those incidents resulting in death. An estimated 300,000 people in North America alone die from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) each year. The vast majority of these deaths occur in… Read more →

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On Friday, the Paul G. Allen School celebrated the Class of 2019 as the graduates embarked on the next stage in their academic or professional journeys. In addition to granting roughly 575 total degrees this year — including around 400 bachelor’s degrees — the Allen School celebrated the contributions of two outstanding alumni, Joe Heitzeberg and Tessa Lau, and welcomed speaker Maria Klawe, President of Harvey Mudd College, who sent the new graduates… Read more →

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“I’m biased, but I like to say that there’s never been anything like computer science. I don’t think in history there’s been anything that’s been on an exponential growth curve for 50 years without stop. And that gives you some remarkable things.” – Hank Levy, Director of the Allen School & Wissner Slivka Chair in Computer Science & Engineering After 13 years at the helm of the University of Washington’s Computer Science & Engineering program — first… Read more →

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Allen School senior Hannah Werbel is among four undergraduates to earn the prestigious Dean’s Medal from the University of Washington’s College of Arts & Sciences. Werbel, who will receive her bachelor’s in Computer Science with minors in Physics and Mathematics this month, was named a Dean’s Medalist in the Natural Sciences category for her academic excellence, leadership, and service. From the moment she stepped on campus, Werbel has distinguished herself through a rigorous program of study and her participation in… Read more →

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