Earlier this spring, students from Hillside High School in Durham visited Sitterson Hall to celebrate the completion of a semester-long partnership with UNC Computer Science. Fifteen high school students participated in weekly workshops taught by the UNC CS DEI Ambassadors and dedicated to learning about computer science skills and broadening an interest in the field.
The computer science department, typically a male-dominated field of study, has seen an increase in students identifying as non-binary and female over the past few years. Roughly 30 percent of the graduating students in the computer science department are non-binary or female, compared to only 20 percent in 2015, according to Kris Jordan, a computer science professor, and director of the Computer Science Experience Lab.
The Department of Computer Science held a professional memorial service for Department Founder Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. on March 4, 2023. Brooks was remembered in panel discussions featuring colleagues from throughout his long career in the computing industry and academia.
In Sitterson Hall, a server room has turned into an accessible experience lab for students and faculty. Pitched by Prof. Kris Jordan to the College of Arts and Sciences last October, it has seen over 2,200 visitors in the past six weeks. “The undergraduate experience labs are aiming to be a technical experience accelerator with real world technologies, as well as a community hub and a co-working space,” Jordan said.
Theodore Kim (Ph.D. 2006) received the Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the development of the elastic simulation system Fizt2. First used in Coco (2017), Fizt2 improves speed, robustness, and generality of simulation for both cloth and flesh.
As anticipation and anxiety fuel debates about artificial intelligence, UNC’s AI Project brings together scholars from philosophy, computer science and linguistics to explore its implications.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers including Assistant Professor Daniel Szafir was awarded a $1.8 million NSF grant to aid chemists by using robotics to automate time-consuming tasks in a safe and efficient manner.
Purdue University computer scientist Aniket Bera and others are working to help a variety of robots “better incorporate and understand human behavior and emotion.” While the focus is on the robots’ abilities, the changes lead to increased medium-as-social-actor presence, improved human-machine communication, and important positive – even life-saving – outcomes.
A religious studies scholar’s annotated digital model will preserve an endangered place while letting others explore it virtually.
Alumna Tanya Amert (Ph.D. 2021) was awarded the 2022 ACM SIGBED Paul Caspi Memorial Dissertation Award. The award recognizes outstanding doctoral dissertations that significantly advance the state of the art in the science of embedded systems.
