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Summer 2019 Issue

Carnegie Mellon and Facebook AI Beats Professionals in Six-Player Poker

"Superhuman" Card Shark Achieves New AI Milestone

by Jason Maderer and Virginia Alvino Young | Thursday, July 11, 2019

An artificial intelligence program developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with Facebook AI has defeated leading professionals in six-player No-Limit Texas Hold'em, the world's most popular form of poker.

The AI, called Pluribus, defeated poker professional Darren Elias, who holds the record for most World Poker Tour titles; and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, winner of six World Series of Poker events. Each pro separately played 5,000 hands of poker against five copies of Pluribus.

Noam Brown Named MIT Technology Review 2019 Innovator Under 35

Computer Science Ph.D. Student Cited for AI That Beat Poker Pros

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Noam Brown, a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department who helped develop an artificial intelligence that bested professional poker players, has been named to MIT Technology Review's prestigious annual list of Innovators Under 35 in the Visionary category.

Maxion Wins DSN Test of Time Award

by Byron Spice | Monday, June 10, 2019

Roy Maxion, research professor in the Computer Science and Machine Learning departments, will receive the 2019 Test of Time Award at the IEEE/International Federation for Information Processing Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2019), held June 24–27 in Portland, Oregon.

Hoffmann Receives NSF CAREER Award

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Jan Hoffmann, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department, has received a five-year, $519,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award for young faculty members.

New Technology Improves Cloud Computing

by Daniel Tkacik | Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Cloud computing has enabled huge triumphs in big data, from searching the web in a millisecond to decoding the human genome. But to keep cloud servers running smoothly, developers have applied different techniques to minimize disrupting their central processing units (CPUs) — techniques that don't often work together.

Thanks to a team of computer science researchers, that's all changed.

Lenore Blum Receives Inaugural Dean's Professorship in Tech Entrepreneurship

by Byron Spice | Friday, May 10, 2019

Lenore Blum, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, received the inaugural Dean's Professorship in Technology Entrepreneurship at a May 3 ceremony and celebration.

Bajpai Wins 2019 K&L Gates Prize

Graduating Senior Discovered Her Passion for Teaching at SCS

by Byron Spice | Thursday, May 9, 2019

Tanvi Bajpai, who came to Carnegie Mellon University to become a software engineer and discovered a passion for teaching in the process, will receive the 2019 K&L Gates Prize.

The $5,000 prize, supported by the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, recognizes a graduating senior who has best inspired fellow students at the university to love learning through a combination of intellect, high scholarly achievement, engagement with others and character.

Computer Science Idea Triggers First Kidney-Liver Transplant Swap

Sandholm Says Multi-Organ Exchanges Could Boost Number of Transplants

by Byron Spice | Thursday, May 2, 2019

Aliana Deveza was desperate. Her mother's health was failing after years of fighting a hereditary kidney disease. Aliana wasn't a good donor candidate for her mother because she eventually might face the same disease herself.

But what if she donated part of her liver instead? Specifically, what if she donated part of her liver to a patient who needed it and then a loved one of that patient donated a kidney to her mother?

Arulraj Receives SIGMOD Dissertation Award

by Byron Spice | Monday, April 29, 2019

Joy Arulraj, a Computer Science Department alumnus who earned his Ph.D. in 2018, is the recipient of the Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award of 2019, which recognizes the best dissertation in the field of databases for the previous year. It is presented by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on the Management of Data (SIGMOD).

First-Years on Their First Year

SCS Freshmen Talk About Their SCS Experiences

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Thursday, April 18, 2019

A few months ago, we reached out to School of Computer Science first-year students as they finished their first semester at Carnegie Mellon University. With a full semester under their belts, these students shared how they started their CS journey, the challenges they faced when they arrived on campus, the memorable opportunities they took part in and experiences they shared, and their goals to make the most out of their time at CMU.

SCS Ph.D. Students Named Hertz Graduate Fellows

by Michael Henninger | Tuesday, April 16, 2019

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced today that Carnegie Mellon University student Ben Eysenbach and incoming student Bailey Flanigan will receive 2019 Hertz Fellowships. Eysenbach and Flanigan are two of 11 recipients of the fellowship this year, chosen from more than 840 applicants. They will receive up to five years of academic funding, potentially amounting to $250,000, and the freedom to independently choose what they research.

Former CMU Professor Shares 2018 Turing Award for Deep Learning

Geoffrey Hinton Served on the CSD Faculty in the 1980s

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Geoffrey Hinton, a former Computer Science Department faculty member and now a vice president and Engineering Fellow at Google, will receive the Association for Computing Machinery's 2018 A.M. Turing Award along with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun for their revolutionary work on deep neural networks.

Former Stehlik Scholars: Where Are They Now?

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Thursday, March 21, 2019

Rachel Holladay (CS 2017), Ananya Kumar (CS 2017) and Eric Zhu (CS 2018) were a few of the earliest recipients of the Mark Stehlik SCS Alumni Undergraduate Impact Scholarship. The award — now in its fourth year — recognizes undergraduate students for their commitment and dedication to the field of computer science both in and beyond the classroom.

Blockchain Course Challenges Students to Create Apps for the Launch of CMU Cryptocurrency

by Mara Falk | Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Faculty from the Tepper School of Business, School of Computer Science, and Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy are launching a course in which student groups address issues that can be brokered by blockchain technology, including the design of the university's own cryptocurrency.

Haeupler, Mohimani Receive Sloan Research Fellowships

by Byron Spice | Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Bernhard Haeupler, assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department, and Hosein Mohimani, assistant professor in the Computational Biology Department, are among 126 recipients of 2019 Sloan Research Fellowships, which honor early career scholars whose achievements put them among the very best scientific minds working today.

Kiesler Elected to National Academy of Engineering

by Byron Spice | Thursday, February 7, 2019

Sara Kiesler, Hillman Chair Emerita of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Building a verifiably-secure internet

by Daniel Tkacik | Wednesday, January 30, 2019

In security, almost nothing is guaranteed. It's impossible to test the infinite ways a criminal hacker may penetrate a proverbial firewall. But what if, by the laws of mathematics, something could be proven to be secure without running an infinite number of test cases?

This is what CyLab's Bryan Parno is trying to do with for critical internet software.

Kim and Ye Win 2019 Microsoft Ph.D. Fellowships

by Byron Spice | Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Computer Science Department Ph.D. students Daehyeok Kim and Katherine Ye are among 10 students nationwide who have been awarded two-year Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowships for 2019.

Winter 2018 Issue

Download the Winter 2018 issue. (PDF reader required.)

Carnegie Mellon Launches High School Computer Science Curriculum

Free, Online Coursework Helps Teach Programming Skills

by Byron Spice | Thursday, January 10, 2019

Carnegie Mellon University, world-renowned for computer science and artificial intelligence, has launched a free, online curriculum for high school students that helps instructors teach programming skills using engaging graphics and animations.

Thwarting Bias in AI Systems

by Alexandra George | Thursday, December 20, 2018

Artificial intelligence systems are at work in many areas where we might not realize — making decisions about credit, what ads to show us and which job applicants to hire. While these systems are really good at systematically combing through lots of data to detect patterns and optimize decisions, the biases held by humans can be transmitted to these systems through the training data.

SCS Professors Reimagine What It Takes To Code

by Aisha Rashid (DC 2019) | Wednesday, December 19, 2018

David Kosbie and Mark Stehlik believe anyone can code. As course instructors for Principles of Computing — better known to Carnegie Mellon University students by its course number, 15-110 — that belief comes in handy. One of two introductory courses offered in the School of Computer Science, 15-110 covers programming constructs along with history and current events in computer science, tailored to students with little to no computer science background.

Alumna Q&A: Alexandra Johnson

by Susie Cribbs | Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Carnegie Mellon University doesn't always consider itself cool. But this year, Seventeen magazine begged to differ, naming CMU one of its 2018 "Cool Schools." Their reasons? Our gender parity in STEM fields and strong community of female coders.

Fellowship Advances Women in Cybersecurity

Elite hacker Carolina Zarate was named this year’s EWF INI Fellow

by Jessica Corry | Wednesday, December 5, 2018

While women make up just 24 percent of the cybersecurity workforce, Carnegie Mellon University and its Information Networking Institute is closing the gender gap one student at a time.