News Headlines
‘Changing the game’: Black in Technology works to support Black students in computer science
February 2, 2021 | The Daily Tar Heel
Prior to arriving at UNC, 2020 graduate Charlie Helms had only briefly heard about the field of computer science. But when he attended UNC’s admitted students day, he was immediately drawn to the Black and Latinx compute … Read more
Three College faculty named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
November 30, 2020 | College of Arts and Sciences
Three faculty members of the College of Arts & Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Fellows are recognized for their research; teachin … Read more
This could lead to the next big breakthrough in common sense AI
November 10, 2020 | MIT Technology Review
You’ve probably heard us say this countless times: GPT-3, the gargantuan AI that spews uncannily human-like language, is a marvel. It’s also largely a mirage. You can tell with a simple trick: Ask it the color of sheep, … Read more
NC Begins Smartphone Coronavirus Contact Tracing, But Will Enough People Use The App? [Prof. Samarjit Chakraborty interviewed]
November 6, 2020 | WFAE.org
WFAE | By Greg Barnes | North Carolina Health News Published October 31, 2020 at 8:51 AM EDT This story originally appeared in North Carolina Health News. About a quarter of a million people in North Carolina have now do … Read more
CS hackathons find new home online
October 30, 2020
When classes at UNC shifted fully online, so did events, such as corporate recruiting and annual hackathons. In October, UNC Computer Science student leaders and staff worked together to hold two popular hackathons, Caro … Read more
Open Course: Extending COMP 110 beyond Carolina
October 30, 2020
Each year, over 1,000 students in COMP 110: Introduction to Programming are introduced to computer science by Teaching Professor and UNC CS alumnus Kris Jordan and his team of 45 enthusiastic Undergraduate Teaching Assis … Read more
Islam, Embedded Intelligence Lab develop for a future with fewer batteries
October 29, 2020
Continuous health monitoring is the future of healthcare, and wearable technology is helping to lead the charge by collecting useful baseline data between check-ups and detecting changes that are early signs of illness. … Read more
With help from open source community, Graphene grows from prototype to product
October 27, 2020
A guiding research principle of the Department of Computer Science is the idea, put forth by founder Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., that a computer scientist is a toolsmith, creating resources that enhance the work of others. … Read more
Alumni Profile: Cassidy Soutter (B.S. 2020)
October 26, 2020
When UNC moved to remote instruction in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so much changed for the Class of 2020 and their peers. Today, as we continue to navigate this unprecedented situation and try to recreate t … Read more
Data science builds bridges
October 19, 2020 | The Well UNC
Carolina’s faculty, researchers and scientists continue to tear down silos and build bridges by sharing data. Silos from years past have rapidly disappeared from the University’s academic landscape over the past decade. … Read more
How scientists secure the data driving autism research [Mark Styner was interviewed for the story]
September 30, 2020 | Spectrum News
The cardboard box has been sitting in Maya’s house in Ohio for months. The box, no bigger than a hardcover novel, contains six plastic tubes — one for Maya, one for her husband, Mark, and one for each of their four child … Read more
UNC student finds TikTok fame, joy through coding
September 22, 2020 | The Daily Tar Heel
What started as a video celebrating the completion of a long project for computer science class COMP110, Introduction to Programming, became a viral TikTok within hours. The 59-second video, posted by sophomore Ibrahim S … Read more
2020 Hettleman Prizes awarded to exceptional early-career faculty [Mohit Bansal among four awardees]
September 21, 2020 | UNC Communications
The annual Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement have been awarded to four promising faculty members who exemplify groundbreaking and innovative research along with future career promise. Recognized by … Read more
Reimagining fall recruiting for an online environment
August 31, 2020
During a typical recruiting season, the halls of Sitterson are filled with corporate partners tabling in the lobby and engaging in in-person panel discussions, networking events, or whiteboard parties. Today’s environmen … Read more
Recently tenured PI Bansal’s research in multimodal NLP might improve life in isolation via automation
August 20, 2020
Newly tenured Parker Associate Professor Mohit Bansal has been working for years on research into natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and machine learning, areas of computer science which seek to help com … Read more
Munsell hired as teaching assistant professor
August 17, 2020
Brent Munsell has been appointed a teaching assistant professor for the Department of Computer Science. Munsell spent the previous academic year working with the department as an adjunct teaching assistant professor and … Read more
Alumni Profile: Joe Puccio (B.S. 2016), Co-founder, Coursicle
August 13, 2020
As an incoming student in 2012, Joe Puccio faced a familiar challenge for college students, organizing and planning for course registration. With co-founder Tara Aida, he developed a program that would track course openi … Read more
CS major Charlotte Dorn takes an unforeseen opportunity and finds her path forward
August 12, 2020
At Carolina, earning a Liberal Arts degree offers those with a passion in the STEM fields a unique opportunity to supplement and enrich their studies, to consider application and impact, and be inspired by the world arou … Read more
Raffel joins UNC CS faculty for Fall 2020
August 5, 2020
Colin Raffel has officially joined the faculty of the Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor. Raffel received a doctorate in electrical engineering from Columbia University in 2016 and spent the last fo … Read more
UNC Student Sees the Future of Tech Through Pink-Colored Glasses
July 7, 2020 | GrepBeat
The future leaders of the tech field are learning how to program in churches and libraries right now. And they’re in elementary school. And they’re females. Rida Bayraktar, Founder of PinkSTREAM, says some girls she work … Read more
Bansal, Sturton promoted to associate professor
July 3, 2020
Mohit Bansal and Cynthia Sturton were promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure, effective July 1, 2020. These promotions are given only to faculty members who demonstrate service to the academic community, … Read more
UNC Computer Science faculty issue open invitation toward equity in tech
June 23, 2020
The events of the past few weeks have called on all of us. We have been asked to reflect on the roles power and privilege play in our lives, both individually and within our communities. We have been charged with dismant … Read more
Fuchs named 2020 Eurographics Fellow
May 29, 2020
Federico Gil Distinguished Professor Henry Fuchs has been named a fellow of the European Association for Computer Graphics (Eurographics). One of only three inductees for the 2020 class, Fuchs was selected for his “semin … Read more
Profiles in Undergraduate Research: Mathew Atisa
May 27, 2020
Mathew Atisa’s desire to study computer science began with an interest in computers in middle school, it was further fostered by his courses and extracurricular activities in high school. As a first-year student at UNC h … Read more
UNC Computer Science Honors 2020 Graduates with Virtual Celebration
May 20, 2020
May 10, 2020 would have marked the annual UNC Department of Computer Science Commencement ceremony, but with commencement ceremonies postponed in response to the COVID-19 crisis, spring graduates were honored through cre … Read more
2020-2021 Top 10 Scholar-Athletes [CS Major Ashley Smith named Top 10 Scholar-Athlete]
May 19, 2020 | UNC Academic Support Program for Student Athletes
We have the distinct privilege of honoring our Top Ten Scholar-Athletes. These students are the five male and five female senior student-athletes with the highest cumulative grade point averages. The ten students being h … Read more
The Fast and the Autonomous
May 18, 2020 | Endeavors
In a small corner of Sitterson Hall sits a fleet of pint-size cars that can see and navigate independently, winning races for the team of UNC computer science students that created them. While the stakes are low for thes … Read more
Interview with department founder and Turing Award winner Frederick Brooks by professor Gary Bishop
May 15, 2020 | ACM
Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. was born April 19, 1931, in Durham, North Carolina. Growing up in the Raleigh/Durham region, he earned his AB in physics at Duke University in 1953. Brooks then joined the pioneering degree … Read more
Pushing through challenges and embracing new opportunities
May 4, 2020 | UNC Discover
To say that Sweta Karlekar’s four years at Carolina have been packed is an understatement. She had internships at Disney, Yelp and Facebook. She was a part of Google’s AI Research Mentorship Program. She presented her re … Read more
Black in Tech celebrates Black coders with inaugural AfroPix event
April 30, 2020
UNC Computer Science sponsors 19 student clubs and organizations, highlighting the breadth of student interest across the field, as well as the desire for engagement within the student community. Student-led events and p … Read more