News Headlines

Mendoza receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
April 25, 2024
CS major Christine Mendoza received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which provides three years of financial support, including a $37,000 annual stipend and $16,000 cost-of-education allowance. Mendoza was one of onl … Read more

Blueprints for Preservation
April 23, 2024 | UNC Research
Religious studies professor Lauren Leve is collaborating with computer scientist Jim Mahaney and Kathmandu locals to document the Swayambjunath, or “Swayambhu,” temple. Today, the team has conducted more than 30 intervie … Read more

Protecting Your Texts
April 17, 2024 | UNC Research
Computer scientist Saba Eskandarian is dedicated to deciphering the problems that come along with online messaging. He studies secure communication systems and applies his knowledge of cryptography — the technique of pro … Read more

Stanley receives $400k NIH grant to study brains affected by Alzheimer’s disease
April 16, 2024
Natalie Stanley received an NIH grant to revolutionize diagnostic and predictive capabilities for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The grant will provide $414,486 in direct and indirect funding over two years.

A new era of AI
April 15, 2024 | Carolina Arts & Sciences Magazine
Carolina Arts & Sciences Magazine published a round-up of AI research at UNC, featuring CS faculty members Junier Oliva and Gedas Bertasius.

Niethammer awarded $3.3 million NIH grant to identify genetic markers of osteoarthritis
April 11, 2024
Professor Marc Niethammer received an NIH grant to develop a new framework that combines imaging and genetics to advance research for the treatment of osteoarthritis. The project, funded by $3,326,488 over five years, ai … Read more

Localizing and Editing Knowledge in LLMs with Peter Hase [Podcast]
April 8, 2024 | TWIML AI Podcast with Sam Charrington
Doctoral student Peter Hase joined host Sam Charrington to discuss “scalable oversight,” the importance of developing a deeper understanding of how large neural networks make decisions, how matrices are probed by interpr … Read more

Sengupta receives NIH Trailblazer Award to revolutionize endoscopy using computer vision
April 4, 2024
Assistant Professor Roni Sengupta was recognized with the NIH NIBIB Trailblazer R21 Award. The award will provide roughly $580,000 in total funding to develop a 3D modeling system that can revolutionize endoscopy by prov … Read more

Multimodal AI built with Tar Heel research
February 21, 2024 | UNC Communications
Working with a team at Microsoft Research, Carolina computer science professor Mohit Bansal and his student Zineng Tang, a Microsoft intern, created the CoDi AI system — a model capable of generating any combination of o … Read more

Human Stories in AI: Rick Marks
February 19, 2024 | StatQuest with Josh Starmer
As part of the StatQuest series on Statistics and Machine Learning, Josh Starmer interviews Rick Marks, a professor in the School of Data Science and Society and Department of Computer Science and former director of Goog … Read more

UNC Computer Science Doctoral Student Tony Qin wins first place in US Army Reserve Polyglot Games
February 18, 2024
Tony Qin, a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science, shares his fusion experience of academic excellence and military commitment. As he navigates the landscape of computer science and military … Read more

Computer science team uses AR to treat Parkinson’s
February 16, 2024 | UNC Communications
Since September 2022, Henry Fuchs, Danielle Szafir and others have collaborated with medical researchers at Carolina on the multifaceted Parkinson’s Project. Their PD-Insighter software combines graphics and data visuali … Read more

Pearl Hacks celebrates 10 years of inclusive tech
February 9, 2024 | UNC Communications
Pearl Hacks is celebrating a decade of empowering women and gender-nonconforming individuals in the world of tech. The student-led group hosts its annual hackathon Feb. 24-25 with the goal of honoring its past and paving … Read more

UNC CS’s impactful contributions at NeurIPS 2023
January 23, 2024
UNC Computer Science researchers made a splash at the 2023 Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). Current and future UNC CS personnel had 14 papers accepted.

The next generation of robotic surgery is emerging: but is it better than a human? [Prof. Ron Alterovitz interviewed]
January 19, 2024 | Nature Medicine
High financial costs and limited evidence restrict the adoption of robotic surgery, but new uses for robots and attempts to assess efficacy could widen access.

UNC CS presents computer vision research at WACV 2024
December 18, 2023
UNC CS researchers had two publications accepted at WACV 2023, one of which was selected for an oral presentation, a distinction reserved for the top 2.6 percent of papers at the conference.

Community connections drive career [CS major Pramit Thapa featured by UNC]
December 14, 2023 | UNC Communications
Winter graduate Pramit Thapa hopes to use his computer science experience to give back to the Nepalese community.

From Reality to Virtual Reality: Digitally Preserving Nepal’s Ancient Swayambhu Temple
December 5, 2023
Perched atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley, the ancient Swayambhu Temple proudly reflects Nepal’s rich cultural tapestry. In a groundbreaking initiative this past October, Religious Studies Professor Lauren Leve and Com … Read more

Ego-Exo4D Project gives AI training a human touch
November 30, 2023
UNC CS announces its participation in the Ego-Exo4D project, an innovative venture to revolutionize AI. An international consortium of 14 universities in partnership with Meta FAIR team will create a first-of-its-kind, l … Read more

HackNC & Carolina Data Challenge: Where code meets innovation
November 20, 2023
This fall, UNC Computer Science transformed into a hub of technological innovation and collaboration with two major student events: HackNC and the Carolina Data Challenge. These hackathons, led by student teams with depa … Read more

Bansal receives Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Young Alumnus Award
November 14, 2023 | College of Arts & Sciences
Professor Mohit Bansal earned the IIT Kanpur Young Alumnus Award, conferred annually to two alumni under 40 years old who have contributed significantly to achieve exemplary recognition and distinction in their careers. … Read more

From Sony to Google to UNC-Chapel Hill: UNC Computer Science Welcomes Dr. Richard Marks
November 1, 2023
In this exclusive interview, new professor Richard Marks reflects on the strategies he has developed over decades in the tech industry and offers a glimpse into the future of generative AI as well as what he hopes to bri … Read more

Researchers from Meta and UNC-Chapel Hill Introduce Branch-Solve-Merge: A Revolutionary Program Enhancing Large Language Models’ Performance in Complex Language Tasks
October 31, 2023 | Marktechpost
Branch-Solve-Merge (BSM) is a program for enhancing Large Language Models (LLMs) in complex natural language tasks. BSM includes branching, solving, and merging modules to plan, crack, and combine sub-tasks. Applied to L … Read more

Oliva given NSF grant to enhance machine learning extrapolation
October 17, 2023
Assistant Professor Junier Oliva received a two-year NSF grant to improve the ability of machine learning models to extrapolate beyond the scope of their training dataset. The project will hopefully enhance scientific ta … Read more

UNC CS researchers earn Best Poster Award at IROS 2023 medical robotics workshop
October 12, 2023
Inbar Fried, Janine Hoelscher, and Ron Alterovitz received a Best Poster Award during the Data vs Model in Medical Robotics workshop held at the 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (I … Read more

Sturton receives 2 NSF grants for hardware security verification
October 10, 2023
Associate Professor Cynthia Sturton received two NSF grants to bolster hardware security verification. Both projects represent multi-institutional collaborations with broad applications.

Autonomous Medical Robot Successfully Steers Needles Through Living Tissue
September 20, 2023
A team of researchers and physicians led by Professor Ron Alterovitz has demonstrated, for the first time, a robotic needle capable of autonomously maneuvering through intricate lung tissue while avoiding obstacles and i … Read more

Utilizing AI and machine learning for drug discovery
September 14, 2023 | Eshelman School of Pharmacy
Junier Oliva and Alexander Tropsha received at two-year grant from the National Science Foundation for a new project, “Extrapolative Analyses for Reliable Machine Learning Driven Scientific Discovery”, the goal of which … Read more

Stanley receives $219k NIH grant to analyze relationship between stimulations and responses in immune cells
September 1, 2023
Assistant Professor Natalie Stanley received an NIH grant worth $219,366 to develop new, fully automated bioinformatics techniques to identify and characterize clinically predictive intracellular signal responses elicite … Read more

VisuaLab earns 2 Best Paper Honorable Mention awards at IEEE VIS
August 31, 2023
Members of UNC Computer Science’s VisuaLab received two Best Paper Honorable Mention awards from the 2023 IEEE Visualization Conference. Led by Danielle Szafir, the group undertakes research at the intersection of data s … Read more