Issue 61 | October 2012 View in a Web browser

Picture of the Month

Packing the House

It was standing-room-only in Klaus Atrium, Sept. 10-12, as the College of Computed hosted its annual Career Fair. This year's event shattered records for corporate attendance, as some 115 companies registered to appear over the entire three days (with another 35 companies on the waiting list). Students turned out in force as well, with 60 student volunteers handling registrations for 1,835 of their peers.

Research Support 

Financial Dashboard

Newly Awarded Contracts for August 2012

Gifts Received for August 2012

* Also included equipment with approximate value of $400,000.

People@CoC

Anton Keynotes 7th ARES Conference in Prague

Annie Anton (IC) delivered a keynote address at the 7th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES 2012), held Aug. 20 at the University of Economics in Prague. ARES brings together researchers and practitioners in the area of dependability, highlighting various aspects of security with special focus on the linkage between availability, reliability and security.

Nersessian Makes Most of Speaking Trip to Japan

Nancy Nersessian (IC) gave the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2012), held for the first time in Japan (Sapporo), Aug. 1-4. Nersessian's talk was titled, "Building Scientific Cognition: Conceptual Innovation on the Frontiers of Science." While in country, she also gave an invited symposium talk to the Japanese Society for Cognitive Science and delivered the keynote in a special workshop on the future of Japanese science education, held at Tamagawa University in Tokyo. Finally, Nersessian has been invited to address the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools, to be held Dec. 5-8 in Washington.

Randall a Headliner at Workshop for Women in Probability

Dana Randall (CS) will be one of the featured speakers at the Workshop for Women in Probability, to be held Oct 14-16 at Duke University in Durham, N.C. The event is the third in this series after the first two workshops were held at Cornell University in 1994 and 2008. A few weeks later Randall will travel to the University of Delaware, where she will deliver the Carl J. Rees Distinguished Lecture in Mathematics.

Goel, Weinberg to Deliver TEDx@Peachtree Talks

Ashok Goel and Gil Weinberg (both IC) have been invited to give talks at TEDx@Peachtree, to be held Nov. 2 at the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta. In his talk, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Goel will discuss his work in designing "creative AI systems" and the inspiration he's drawn from natural systems.

Dovrolis, Tetali Co-Organizing GT Internet Workshop

Constantine Dovrolis and Prasad Tetali (both CS) are co-organizing the Workshop on Internet Topology and Economics (WITE), to be hosted at Georgia Tech, Nov. 12-14, 2012. The workshop is co-sponsored by the Algorithms & Randomness Center (ARC) and the Institute for Data and High-Performance Computing, as well as by the Russian Internet company Yanex. For more information, stay tuned to the ARC website.

Foley in the UK for Talks on Computer Graphics

Jim Foley (IC) is visiting the United Kingdom in October to deliver his talk, "A Computer Graphics Grand Challenge: How Much Realism is Enough?" Foley will speak at the University of Bradford in England on Oct. 3 and at Glyndwr University in Wales on Oct. 5. The talk is one Foley has delivered throughout the Southeast as part of the ACM Distinguished Lecture Series.

Goodman Earns Cybersecurity Appointment, Talks on D.C. Panel

Sy Goodman (CS) has been appointed by the National Academies to serve on the ad hoc Committee on Professionalizing the Nation's Cybersecurity Workforce. The committee will examine workforce requirements for cybersecurity and the segments and job functions in which professionalization is most needed; the role of assessment tools, certification, licensing and other means for assessing and enhancing professionalization; and emerging approaches, such as performance-based measures.

Recently Goodman, along with former College faculty member and national cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, participated in an expert panel discussing U.S. government cybersecurity strategies, Sept. 14 in Washington. The event was hosted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and also included panelists Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, and Steven Bellovin, professor of computer science at Columbia University.

Stasko Paper Still Winning Awards Two Decades Later

At this year's IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2012), being held Sept. 30-Oct. 4 in Innsbruck, Austria, John Stasko (IC) will receive a special award: His 1992 paper, "Understanding and Characterizing Software Visualization Systems," is being honored as the Most Influential Paper (from 20 years ago). The paper, co-written with alumnus Charles Patterson, was presented at the 1992 symposium and can be found today in SMARTech.

Peikert to Speak at Lattice Cryptography Summer School in Portugal

Chris Peikert (CS) is an invited speaker at the ECRYPT II Summer School on Lattices, to be held Oct. 1-5 in Porto, Portugal. Covering selected topics in lattice-based cryptography, the summer school provides an overview of important cryptographic applications of lattices that have emerged in recent years.

Arriaga Does Double Dip of CDC Talks

On Aug. 14, Rosa Arriaga (IC) gave a talk at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities titled, "Using Theory and Technology for Health Promotion: Examples from Autism and Asthma." The talk was so well received that Arriaga was invited back a month later to deliver it again to the CDC's Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects on Sept 21.

Riedl Talks Storytelling with NSF I-Corps

Visitors to the NSF's Innovation-Corps (I-Corps) program meeting, held Aug. 27 at Georgia Tech, were treated to a keynote lecture from Mark Riedl (IC). Titled "The Science and Art of Storytelling," the lecture was intended to get teams of entrepreneurs thinking about how to tell the story of their start-up experience. The NSF I-Corps is a set of activities and programs that prepare scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory. Combining experience and guidance from established entrepreneurs with a targeted curriculum, I-Corps is a public-private partnership program that teaches grantees to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from academic research, and offers entrepreneurship training to student participants.

Ammar Reaches Up Into 'Cirrus Cloud' for Utah Talk

Mostafa Ammar (CS) will speak as part of the University of Utah's Distinguished Lecture Series on Oct. 5 when he delivers the talk, "Mobile Computing in Cirrus Clouds: The Challenge of Intermittent Connectivity," in Salt Lake City. In the talk, Ammar will discuss how mobile devices often encounter, sometimes intermittently, many entities capable of lending computational resources. Ammar calls this connectivity a "cirrus cloud" due to its intermittent nature.

Best Talking Data & Citizen Engagement in South Africa

Michael Best (IC) will visit Cape Town, South Africa, this month for two invited lectures. The first, to be held Oct. 11, will be during a panel discussion, "Open Government Data For Citizen Engagement," hosted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). The panel is part of a Oct. 10-12 UNDESA event titled, "Next Stage in Open Government Data: Using Data for Transparency, Accountability and Collaboration." Then on Oct. 17 he'll talk about "ICTs, Civic Engagement and Political Development" at the University of Western Cape.

Effort from Traynor Lab Takes Best Student Paper at ISC 2012

A paper written by Ph.D. student Chaitrali Amrutkar and Patrick Traynor (CS) was named Best Student Paper at the Information Security Conference (ISC 2012), held Sept. 19-21 in Passau, Germany. The paper, titled "Measuring SSL Indicators on Mobile Browsers: Extended Life, or End of the Road," measures how well browsers for mobile devices meet the standards for graphic system-security indicators set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium.

Personnel Announcements

Audrey Southerland has joined CoC as a Laboratory Coordinator in IC effective 8/27/12. Her email address is asoutherland3@gatech.edu, phone number is 4-4456 and is located in HSI 206D. Welcome Audrey!
Matthew "Graham" Lopez has joined CoC as a Temporary Research Scientist I in CSE effective 9/1/12. His email address is mlopez@cc and is located at the Oak Ridge office. Welcome Graham!
Clarrisa Scott has joined CoC as an Accountant II in CoC's Financial Services department effective 9/4/12. Her email address is cscott@cc, phone number is 4-2568 and is located in CCB 159. Welcome Clarrisa!
Xuechen Zhang has joined CoC as a Post-Doc in CS effective 9/11/12. His email address is xczhang@cc. Welcome Xuechen!
Antonette Benford has joined CoC as Assistant to the Chair I in CS (Lance Fortnow's assistant) effective 9/14/12. Her email address is abenford@cc, phone number is 4-6711 and is located in KACB 3404. Welcome Antonette!
Swaroop Vattam has joined CoC as a Research Scientist II in IC effective 9/15/12. His email address is svattam@cc, phone number is 5-1186 and is located in TSRB's AI Lab. Welcome Swaroop!
Shu Liu has joined CoC as a Visiting Scholar in CSE effective 9/15/12 as part of the GT Shanghai study abroad program. Her email address is sliu@cc, phone number is 5-3135 and is located in KACB Lab 1343. Welcome Shu!
Ruta Mehta has joined CoC as a Post-Doc in CS effective 9/21/12. Email address is rmehta@cc, phone number is 5-4610 and is located in KACB 2111. Welcome Ruta!

General News

Galil to Talk about 'What's Next' at CoC Fall Town Hall

Dean Zvi Galil will host this fall's College Town Hall on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 11 a.m. in Klaus 1116. The theme of the event is "What's Next?" as Galil will discuss the College's strategic plans and initiatives. Faculty, staff and students are welcome; for more information, please email Mike Terrazas or call 5-7225.

Coursera Co-Founder Koller to Deliver C21U Lecture, Oct. 3

The Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U) invites the College community to its Oct. 3 event featuring Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, who will discuss her company's far-reaching experiment in education in the lecture, "The Online Revolution: Education for Everyone." Koller will discuss how Coursera can provide both an improved classroom experience for on-campus students (via the "flipped-classroom" model), as well as a meaningful learning experience for millions of students around the world. Koller's talk includes the pedagogical foundations for this type of teaching and the key technological ideas that support them. The lecture will be held at 3 p.m. in Klaus 1116. To RSVP, visit the C21U website.

College Names New Awards Committee for 2012-13

Jim Foley (IC) will continue as chair of the 2012-13 Awards Committee and will be joined by representatives from across the College. Serving as the awards program and event coordinators are staff members Alicia Richhart and Margaret Bankoff, respectively. Representing the three schools are Santosh Vempala (CS), Jarek Rossignac (IC) and Rich Vuduc (CSE); representing the M.S. program are the school M.S. coordinators, Foley, Vuduc and Ed Omiecinski (CS); representing undergraduates will be Troy Peace (OEC); and representing the staff will be Dani Denton and Elizabeth Ndongi (both CS). In addition, each school has named its own award committee, and those committees include, for CS, Vempala, Kishore Ramachandran and H. Venkateswaran; for IC, Rossignac, Henrik Christensen and Ashok Goel; and for CSE, Vuduc, Alberto Apostolico and Le Song. Later this semester the committee will open nominations for next spring's 22nd Annual CoC Awards Ceremony, which will be held in April 2013.

GVU Invites GT Computing Community to 20th Birthday Party

The GVU Center invites all College faculty, staff, students and alumni to its 20th Anniversary Celebration, Oct. 23-25. The three-day program, "GVU20," will offer a thought-provoking look at the future of interactive technology and the role of university research in technology discovery. Highlights include: Main Program, Innovation Workshops (which include a small fee), GVU Impact Awards, Foley Scholars Dinner, Research Showcase, Alumni & Friends Networking Reception with StartUp Showcase, Student Reception and Distinguished Alum Brown Bag Seminar. For more detail, including a full program of events, visit the GVU20 website.

DeMillo to Kick Off Homecoming with Imlay Lecture

Rich DeMillo (CS) will deliver this year's John P. Imlay Jr. Lecture, to be held Thursday, Oct. 26, at 6 p.m. in the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center. DeMillo directs the Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U) and recently published the book, Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges & Universities. His lecture of almost the same name ("Abelard to Apple: The Fate of Georgia Tech and American Universities") will attempt to offer a road map for higher education in the 21st century and talk about the evolving model for higher education, including Apple's iTunesU, MIT's OpenCourseware, and Georgia Tech's own role in defining the technological university of the 21st century. DeMillo's lecture will be held in the Global Learning Center's room 236, and a Homecoming welcome reception will immediately follow in the Global Learning Center Atrium. Click here to register through the GT Alumni Association.

TSO Unveils New Support Site, Continues Upgrades

The College's Technology Service Organization (TSO) released a new and updated version of its support.cc.gatech.edu website. The effort involved migrating to a Drupal/MySQL-based technology being used increasingly more on campus. With the update, TSO focused on providing complete information about services while giving attention to ease of use and readability for visitors. The organization also has continued upgrading key components of the College's technical infrastructure, including:
• CoC Core Network: Data closet upgrades in CCB and TSRB have been completed and are now providing Gigabit speeds to wall ports in all areas
• KILLERBEE cluster: Upgraded to four IBM System x3550 M4 servers with dual 2.3GHz Intel Xeon E5-2630 (6-core) CPUs, 64GB RAM, and dual 120GB solid state disk drives.
• SHUTTLES cluster: Upgraded to five SuperMicro servers, dual socket, 2.4GHz Intel Xeon E5620 (4-core) CPUs, 24GB RAM, and dual 80GB solid state disk drives.
• BAIRD cluster: Upgraded to 20 Supermicro desktops, Intel Xeon X3430 (4-core) CPUs, 16GB RAM, 120GB solid state drives, nVidia GTX550 TI graphics cards and 24-inch LCD monitors.

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 May-August 2012 (most recent headlines at the top).

• Georgia Tech Creating High-Tech Tools to Study Autism
• Damballa Raises $15M to Fuel Asia-Europe Expansion
• Andrea Thomaz Named "Brilliant 10"
• Robots at War: Scholars Debate the Ethical Issues
• Georgia Tech Develops New Graph Algorithm
• Data Analysts Seek to Make Social Media More Useful
• Who's the Most Influential in a Social Graph?
• Study: Dumb Robots Cause Students To Learn More Quickly
Perplexed robots make better teachers.