Three New Faculty Join Department
Gary W. Meyer will join the department Fall 2001 as an associate professor. Professor Meyer received his Ph.D. in computer graphics from Cornell University. His research focuses on color synthesis and color reproduction techniques for computer graphics. He takes advantage of what is known about the human color vision system to improve the efficiency and realism of synthetic image generation techniques and to increase the accuracy and quality of the color reproduction accomplished by computer graphic devices.
Eric Van Wyk, who is currently a postdoctoral research officer at Oxford, will join the department Spring semester 2002 as an assistant professor. Professor Van Wyk received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Iowa. His research is in the area of programming languages, in particular, on designing concise, high-level, formal and practical ways to specify languages and language processing tasks such as translation and optimization.
Paul Schrater, who will have a joint appointment with the Department of Psychology, will join the department Fall 2001 as an assistant professor. Professor Schrater received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include human and computer vision, planning and guiding reaches with and without visual information, and the integration of visual, haptic, and motor information during the perception-action cycle. His research approach treats problems in vision and motor control as problems of statistical inference, which has lead to a concurrent interest in statistical methods that includes Bayesian (Belief) Networks, Dynamic Markov Decision Networks, Pattern Theory, Machine Learning, and other topics in statistics and pattern recognition.
Sturtivant Selected as Top Professor
Carl Sturtivant was selected as the top professor from the CS&E department by the students in IT. He was presented with an award at the IT awards banquet on Wednesday, April 11.
Konstan Elected to University Senate
Professor Joseph Konstan was elected to a three-year term in the University Senate.
Gini Chairs Conferences
Professor Maria Gini is the General Co-Chair, with Toru Ishida from Kyoto University, of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS '02). The conference will be held July 15-19, 2002 in Bologna, Italy. The conference will bring together in a single conference three conferences that were previously held as separate conferences (Autonomous Agents, ICMAS, and ATAL).
Gini is also the General Chair for the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, a conference devoted to autonomous robotics. The conference will be held March 25-27, 2002 in Marina del Rey, California.
Gini Recognized as Distinguished Women Scholar
Professor Maria Gini received one of the first Distinguished Women Scholar Awards from the University. The awards are sponsored by the Graduate School and the Office for Multicultural Affairs. Two awards are given each year, one in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts, and one in the sciences and engineering. The awardees were honored at a reception at the Weisman Art Museum on April 11.
2000 Lando Scholarship Recipients
The recipients of this year's Lando scholarships are Ning Jia, Vasile Bud, Mark Dufresne, Kristine Paul, Steven Linaberry, Dayou Zhou, Chi Lai, and Paul Larson.
Thompson Awarded Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
Jeffrey Thompson, an advisee of Professor Mats Heimdahl, has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship by the Graduate School. The Fellowship is intended to enable Ph.D. candidates of particular promise to devote full-time effort to the research and writing of the dissertation during 2001-02.
Ning Helen Jia Wins Award
Ning Helen Jia was awarded the Asian/Medtronic Achievement Award on her 21st birthday.
Minnesota Places First in Microsoft Competition
Two of our undergraduate students, Michael Wyman and Julian Selman, won first prize, $25,000, in Microsoft's first Pocket PC Programming Competition. More than 100 students nationwide participated. The award was presented July 23 at Microsoft's Redmond campus at a ceremony attended by over 300 faculty from around the world. Wyman and Selman won with a game called Slither, patterned after a Nibbles game. The goal is to make a worm grab as many apples as possible as it is moved through a map, before it is eaten by an enemy snake.
Graduate Student Awarded Highly Regarded DOE Fellowship
Ahna Girshick has been awarded a Computational Science Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Energy. The Computational Science Graduate Fellowship is a highly competitive program that provides fellows with benefits including a monthly stipend of $1,800 and payment of all tuition and fees. In return, fellows must complete coursework in a scientific or engineering discipline, computer science, and applied mathematics. Fellows in this program also complete a three-month practicum at a Department of Energy laboratory. Ms. Girshick will be pursuing her graduate degree at the University of Claifornia-Berkeley in the area of computational vision science.
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