Issue 12 | April 2007

Research News

Thanks to Financial Services the Compiler will provide research contract and monetary gift information each month for the CoC and its associated research centers. The numbers will always be from 2 months prior to ensure the data is final and correct. The tables below are for February 2007.

• YTD New Awards:  $18,339,076   (%59 increase from last year)

Proposed Contracts

Total	Dollar Amount	IC	CS	CSE	GVU	GTISC
17	$7,249,788	18%	41%	29%	6%	6%
* February 2007

Newly Awarded Contracts

Sponsor	Value	PI	Co-PIs	Title
NSF	$180,000	Wenke Lee	None	Collaborative Research: CT-ISG: Modeling and Measuring Botnets
NSF	$499,998	Charles Isbell	None	CAREER: Activity Discovery for Programmable and Personalized
Scientific Systems Company	$30,000	Wenke Lee	None	Computer Network Defense Technologies
Rutgers University/NSF	$79,500	Dana Randall	None	Discrete Random Systems
NSF	$400,000	Subhash Khot	None	CAREER: New Directions in Inapproximability and Probailistically
NSF	$400,000	Nick Feamster	None	CAREER: Improving Network Operations with a View From the Edge
NSF	$300,000	Santosh Vempala	None	Fundamental Algorithms Based on Random Sampling, Convex Relaxation, and Spec

Grants/Gifts Received

Donor	Amount	PI	Co-PIs	Description of Gift/Donation
Hewlett Packard	$70,000	Karsten Schwan	Matthew Wolf	CERCS - Distributed Data Mgmt.
Microsoft	$2,500	Andrea Grimes (GRA)	Becky Grinter	IC- MSR Diversity TR Grant
Nokia, Inc.	$8,000	Keith Edwards	None	IC-Collaborative Mobile Clients
Heburgh Award	$500	Gregory Abowd	None	IC-Hesburgh Fellowship

 

Jim Foley Receives Lifetime Achivement Award from SIGCHI

The Computer Human Interaction Special Interest Group (SIGCHI) within the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) has awarded Jim Foley their Lifetime Achivement Award. The award will be presented at ACM's Computer/Human Interaction 2007 Conference in San Jose, California later this month. The Lifetime Achievement Award is the most prestigious award given by ACM's SIGCHI, and is awarded to those who have made the greatest contributions to the study of human-computer interaction (HCI) and who have led the shaping of the field.

Gregory Abowd Receives Social Impact Award from SIGCHI & Georgia Tech's Don Bratcher Human Relations Award

SIGCHI has also awarded Gregory Abowd its Social Impact Award, given to individuals who promote the application of human-computer interaction research to pressing social needs. Abowd will also receive the Don Bratcher Human Relations Award at the Faculty Staff Honors Luncheon on April 11th. The Bratcher Award is ntended to recognize those members of our campus community who are engaging in exemplary human relations work.

TAG Address Available Online

Dean DeMillo spoke to the Technology Association of Georgia on the topic of "Innovation 2.0" at the Georgia Technology Summit: Innovation 2.0 Managing Innovation For Growth event on February 28th. The speech draws comparisons between the technology firms of the 80s and early Viking settlers of Greenland. A transcript with screen shots of the presentation can be found here: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/images/pdfs/demillo_tag_speech.pdf

TSO Director Hired

Russ Poole has been selected as the new director of TSO effective April 9. Russ comes from the University of Florida where he is the Director of Telecommunications and Network Infrastructure in their Computing and Networking Services division (like our OIT). Russ exhibited numerous attractive qualities but what stood out the most was his experience with organizations similar to our TSO both in academia and industry. His beginnings at UF were in the College of Design, Construction, and Planning where he led a comparable transition in their IT department. Russ holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering as well as an MBA, and he demonstrates strong success in partnerships with faculty, students, staff, and administration.

Personnel Announcements

Wanda Purinton has joined CoC as a Tech Temp in the Dean's suite. Her email address is wpurint@cc and her phone number is 5-4709. Welcome Wanda!
Daniel Ross joined CoC effective 3/28/07 as a Systems Support Specialist III in TSO. His email address is dross@cc. Welcome Daniel!

Vijay Vazirani Co-Organizes Avant Garde CS Workshop

CoC Professor Vijay Vazirani co-organized the Workshops on the Computational Worldview and the Sciences at Caltech in Pasadena, California, March 15-16. The workshop was held not just to identify areas of scientific computation where new algorithms are needed, but also instances where computational concepts play a role in understanding the underlying phenomena. The hope is to have a lively exchange of ideas in a multidisciplinary setting, possibly sparking new collaborations and research directions. This new research agenda will be described in a technical report to be submitted to NSF.

Vijay Vazirani Keynotes Workshop on Algorithmic Game Theory

CoC Professor Vijay Vazirani was a keynote speaker at A workshop on Algorithmic Game Theory held at the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP), University of Warwick, UK, March 25 - 28, 2007. The main focus of the workshop was on the subjects discussed in a new book "Algorithmic Game Theory", co-edited by Dr. Vazirani.

Juan McGruder Speaks at Clark Atlanta Convocation

CoC Associate Director of Development and Clark Atlanta University alumnus Juan McGruder was the speaker at Clark Atlanta University's Spring 2007 Founder's Day Convocation on March 22.

Spring Recruiting Preliminary Numbers Show Improvement from 2006

Final application numbers will be released in June.

Undergraduate Applications Received
	CM	CM	CM	CS	CS	TOTAL	Increase from previous year
	Number Applied	Male/Female	Minority (no women)	Number Applied	Male/Female	CM & CS
2006	218	147/71	31	504	442/62	722	11%
2007	248	159/89	43	506	453/53	754	4.2%

	Master's Applications Received					Increase from previous year
	MSCS	MSHCI	MSINFS	MSBIOE	TOTAL
2006	197	60	37	4	334
2007	543	108	73	2	726	117%

	Ph.D. Applications Received					Increase from previous year
	PhD CS	PhD HCC	PhD ACO	PhD BIOE	TOTAL
2006	415	65	21	4	503
2007	490	57	27	2	576	14.5%

New Face of Computing Symposium

The New Face of Computing Symposium on March 2, 2007 was the first event of its kind for the College of Computing. It garnered interest as a keynote event for the Institute and received significant media interest. Largely produced by the Office of Communications in part as a debut of the new college brand (the new face of computing), the event was also a serious review of the college’s approach to education and research investments (HPC, social computing, robotics, infosec). Keynote Craig Mundie was the right fit for revealing our ‘new’ platform for computer science - one that is focused on people and the common good - to the public, our peers, campus, students, high school instructors, and industry. In total, there were 312 attendees and viewers. The symposium is available via streaming Quicktime format here: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/symposium/webcast/. Photos of the event and complete details of the day can be found here: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/symposium/.

Office of Communications Wins SABRE Award

The Office of Communications has received a 2nd place Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation (SABRE) award in the speechwriting category for the State of the College Address presented by Dean DeMillo last summer. The speech was a joint effort with Matt Nixon of GCI group. The SABRE awards are given by the Holmes Group and are among the most prestigious honors within the public relations and marketing industry. They recognize the best work in PR, reputation management and brand building.

December Faculty Retreat Yeilds New Working Groups

Several initiatives were begun as a result of recommendations and findings collected from breakout sessions at the December faculty retreat at Stone Mountain. They include:

• New Web Science Working Group - Amy Bruckman has launched a new Web Science working group to explore strategic opportunities for the College in research and education with regards to the web. As part of this initiative, the WebLab project looks at what new tools we may need to study and understand the web. The group meets weekly on Thursdays at 10 and participation in both the meetings and web-science mailing list are open to all interested faculty members. For more information, contact Amy Bruckman.
  
  
• World Class Faculty Committee - A committee to recruit world class faculty includes faculty members Janet Kolodner, David Bader, James Rehg, Wenke Lee and Richard Lipton.
  
  
• Groups to improve the CoC PhD program and promote global and international activities are also being formed.

59

Percent increase in research awards since February 06

215

Total number of attendees at the day-long New Face of Computing Symposium, March 2

97

Number of online viewers of the New Face of Computing Symposium Live Webcast