News Headlines
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
Students will participate in virtual networking events in Fall 2020. Software such as Brazen, a virtual event platform, will help recreate the on-campus experience. During a typical recruiting season, the halls of Sitter … Read more
Recently tenured PI Bansal’s research in multimodal NLP might improve life in isolation via automation
August 20, 2020
A person gives an ambiguous instruction, and after scanning the environment, the robot uses commonsense knowledge to infer the missing parameters and successfully perform the action. Newly tenured Parker Associate Profes … 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
Han Guo [interview with UNC Endeavors]
April 9, 2020 | Endeavors
Q: When you were a child, what was your response to this question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A: I remember Thomas Edison making a significant impact on me when I was pretty young, so I thought I would be … Read more
Tar Heel Reader enables virtual learning for students with disabilities amid COVID-19 outbreak
March 30, 2020
Tar Heel Reader home page On March 18, Professor Gary Bishop of the Department of Computer Science logged in to check on Tar Heel Reader, an online library of beginner-level books that he has maintained since 2008. In th … Read more
Kaur receives Google Faculty Research Award
March 30, 2020
Associate Professor Jasleen Kaur received a 2019 Google Faculty Research Award from Google AI. Kaur’s proposal was one of only 150 to be funded out of 917 applications from 50 countries. Google Faculty Research Awards pr … Read more
Bansal receives DARPA Director’s Fellowship and Microsoft Investigator Fellowship
January 30, 2020
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the prestigious Director’s Fellowship to assistant professor Mohit Bansal, naming him one of the top performers among the agency’s Young Faculty Award recipie … Read more
Karlekar, Guo recognized by CRA for excellence in undergraduate research
January 22, 2020
Each year, the Computing Research Association (CRA) recognizes undergraduate students at North American Universities who show outstanding potential in an area of computing research. This year, two UNC Computer Science st … Read more
Hase Awarded Prestigious Royster Society Fellowship
August 26, 2019
First-year computer science doctoral student Peter Hase was awarded the Royster Society of Fellows Recruitment Fellowship by the UNC Graduate School. The fellowship provides full tuition cost, health insurance, and funds … Read more
Bansal receives NSF CAREER Award
July 22, 2019
Dr. Mohit Bansal, assistant professor of computer science at UNC-Chapel Hill and director of the UNC-NLP Lab, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The … Read more
UNC professor’s high-tech robot promises earlier detection of lung cancer
July 19, 2019 | WRAL Tech Wire
Imagine a high-tech robot that can be used to help detect lung cancer before it’s too late. It might sound like a scene from a sci-fi film. But thanks to the work of UNC Chapel Hill professor Ron Alterovitz and his cross … Read more
Alterovitz receives Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
July 16, 2019
Professor Ron Alterovitz was recognized with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government to outstanding scientists a … Read more