Issue 58 | April 2012 View in a Web browser

Picture of the Month

New CS, IC Chairs to Take Seats July 1

On March 20, the College announced its hiring of Lance Fortnow and Annie Antón to chair the schools of Computer Science and Interactive Computing, respectively, effective July 1. Fortnow, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University, and Antón, professor of computer science at North Carolina State University (NCSU), will become the second chairs ever to lead the two College of Computing units, which were elevated to school status in 2007. They replace the Schools' original chairs, Ellen Zegura (CS) and Aaron Bobick (IC), who will return to their faculty roles. For more details, visit the College website.

Research News 

Financial Dashboard for February 2012

Newly Awarded Contracts for February 2012

Grants/Gifts Received for February 2012

People@CoC

GT Well Represented at Social Media Conference

Nick Feamster (CS) and Eric Gilbert (IC) both have had papers accepted at the AAAI International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM), to be held June 4-7 in Dublin, Ireland. Feamster's paper, coauthored with postdoctoral researcher Cristian Lumezanu (CS), is titled "#bias: Measuring the Tweeting Behavior of Propagandists." Gilbert's, coauthored with Ph.D. student Tanushree Mitra, is titled "Have You Heard? How Gossip Flows Through Workplace Email."

Feamster Paper Selected for CACM Research Highlights

A paper presented at SIGCOMM 2011 by Nick Feamster and Ph.D student Srikanth Sundaresan (both CS), "Broadband Internet Performance: A View From the Gateway," has been selected for Communications of the ACM's Research Highlights, a section devoted to the most important recent computer science research. The paper discussed results from a study examining broadband Internet performance in nearly 4,000 U.S. homes, encompassing eight different Internet service providers.

Stasko Has Seat at Judges' Table for ‘Stat Geek Idol' Contest

John Stasko (IC) is participating as a judge in TeamRankings.com's "Stat Geek Idol" competition, held in conjunction with the 2011 NCAA men's basketball tournament. The contest's panel of "rock star judges"—including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban—is looking for the best number-crunching sports analysts in the blogosphere, with the grand prize of a $1,000 Amazon gift card (and "a three-pack of top quality Oxford Brand pocket protectors," according to the website) going to the winner. Stasko is in his second year of co-teaching a course on sports analytics with the Tennenbaum Institute's Rahul Basole. This year the course has featured such guest speakers as Frank Wren, general manager of the Atlanta Braves, and Ron Johnson, the NBA's vice-president in charge of officiating.

A Cappella Group Taal Tadka Posts 1st Music Video on YouTube

Computer science majors have taken over Georgia Tech's South Asian fusion a cappella group, Taal Tadka. The group includes among its members current CS majors Akilesh Natarajan (president), Nikhil Rabindra (music director) and Anjan Karanam (bass), as well as alumni Moinak Bandyopadhyay (male lead) and Nitya Malhotra (soprano). The group has just released its first music video on YouTube, "I'm Yours / Tere Bina," a mashup of U.S. artist Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" and "Tere Bina," a song from the Hindi film Guru. According to the group, the video is intended as a tribute to India's "Bollywood" film industry.

Ammar Talks Wireless Networks in Qatar Visit

Mostafa Ammar (CS) visited Qatar March 18-22 to deliver a pair of talks at Carnegie Mellon University's remote campus in that country. On March 18, he spoke about "Infrastructure-Free Wireless and Mobile Networks: Past, Present and Future," and the next day he delivered the lecture, "Message Ferrying: Mobile-Assisted Data Delivery in Wireless Networks." On his trip, Ammar also visited the Qatar Computing Research Institute and the Qatar University Wireless Innovation Center.

Dovrolis Delivers Keynote at NetSciCom 2012

Constantine Dovrolis (CS) delivered a keynote lecture at the Fourth International Workshop on Network Science for Communication Networks (NetSciCom 2012), held March 30 in Orlando, Fla. "Network science" is an emerging discipline with applications in such network domains as communications, power grids, transportation, social networks, biological networks, complex networks and economics. Dovrolis' keynote was titled "Hourglass-like Networks: From Protocol Stacks to Developing Embryos."

Personnel Announcements

Demetris Antoniades has joined CoC as a Post-Doc in CS effective 2/27/12. His email address is dantonia@cc and is located in KACB 3337. Welcome Demetris!
Annette Clifford has joined CoC as an Administrative Professional I effective 3/14/12. Her email address is acliffor@cc, phone number is 4-6858 and is located in CCB 305. Welcome Annette!
Zachary "Zack" Braun has joined CoC as an IT Support Professional Sr. in TSO effective 3/19/12. His email address is zbraun@cc, phone number is 5-3188 and is located in CCB 234. Welcome Zack!
James Tyson has joined CoC as an IT Support Professional II in TSO effective 3/19/12. His email address is jtyson@cc, phone number is 4-7065 and is located in CCB 148. Welcome James!

General News

College Faculty, Staff to Pick Up GT Institute Awards, April 12

A number of CoC representatives will be honored at Georgia Tech's April 12 Faculty-Staff Honors Luncheon, to be held in the Student Center Ballroom. College winners this year include:
• Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award: Richard Lipton (CS)
• Class of 1934 Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award: Santosh Vempala (CS)
• Faculty Outstanding Service Award: Tucker Balch (IC)
• Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award: Ling Liu (CS)
• Outstanding Faculty Leadership for the Development of GRAs: Wenke Lee (CS)
• CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award: Christopher Peikert (CS) & Michael Stilman (IC)
• Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award: Colin Potts (IC)
• Outstanding Professional Education Award: Mustaque Ahamad (CS)
• Outstanding Staff Performance Award: Office of Outreach, Enrollment and Community, including Cedric Stallworth, Barbara Ericson, Troy Peace, Jennifer Whitlow, Al Hood, Stephanie Echols, Christina Gardner (all CoC)
• 10 Years of Service: Daron Foreman (CoC), Charles Isbell (CoC/IC), Daniel Walker (IC), Richard DeMillo (CS), Constantine Dovrolis (CS), Susie McClain (CS), Deborah Mitchell (CS)
• 25 Years of Service: Ron Arkin (IC)
Tickets for non-awardees to the Faculty-Staff Honors Luncheon are $15. The College will host its own 21st Annual Awards Celebration on April 24 in TSRB.

Guzdial, Starner to Represent CoC at TedXGeorgia Tech

TEDxGeorgiaTech 2012, featuring two College faculty and four total GVU Center researchers among the seven speakers), will take place on April 7 at the Georgia Tech Academy of Medicine. Thad Starner and Mark Guzdial (both IC) are among the scheduled speakers, as are their GVU colleagues Jenay Beer and Jason Freeman. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, where x = independently organized TED event. At TEDxGeorgiaTech, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including this one, are self-organized. At TedXGeorgia Tech, all four GVU representatives will highlight technology and its impact in music, robotics, education and personal uses in society. Admission to TEDxGeorgia Tech is $10 for students, $15 general admission. Click here to register.

Corrections

In the emailed version of the March 2012, an entry in the Research News section for Eric Gilbert's (IC) new award titled "Social Media in Strategic Communication" should have listed Constantine Dovrolis (CS) as a co-PI.

CoC In the News

To help Compiler readers stay informed of the latest College of Computing media coverage, we share the month's headlines from the CoC website. Below are links to all headlines from March 2012 (most recent headlines at the top).

• Energy Secretary Announces DOE Supercomputer Research Institute
• Does Higher Ed Notice How Tech Is Transforming Learning?
• Universities Leading the Way With Education Technology
• College of Computing Hires Fortnow, Anton to Lead Schools
• An Ethical Approach to Robotics
• How To Train Your Robot
• GT Researchers Talking the Talk with Robots
• Could Many Universities Follow Borders Bookstores Into Oblivion?
• Teach Your Robot Well (Georgia Tech Shows How)
• Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls
• A Braille Keyboard to Type Faster than Using Qwerty
• Georgia Tech-Developed App Allows Eyes-Free Mobile Texting