Senior Computer Science and Music Performance in Piano major Daniel Thornton will be inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society, on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at 11:45 a.m. in Lee Chapel.
Congratulations, Daniel!
Applications Open for CRA-W’s DREU Program
The objective of the Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program is to increase the number of women and students from underrepresented groups entering graduate studies in the fields of computer science and engineering. This highly selective program matches promising undergraduate women and undergraduate men from groups underrepresented in computing with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty member’s home institution. Students are directly involved in a research project and interact with graduate students and professors on a daily basis. This experience is invaluable for students who are considering graduate school, providing them with a close-up view of what graduate school is really like and also increasing their competitiveness as an applicant for graduate admissions and fellowships.
Applications are due February 15, 2010.
Camille Cobb in Computing Research News
Camille Cobb ’12 is in the November edition of Computing Research News. Check out her picture on the back page of her presenting her research poster with co-author Katie Baldwin from the University of Delaware at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Emily Gibson Hill to Give Talk on Intuitive Program Comprehension Tools
Emily Gibson Hill from the University of Delaware will give a talk on applying natural-language analysis to understanding large software systems.
Developing Natural Language-based Software Analyses & Tools to Expedite Software Maintenance
Friday, December 4, 11:15 a.m.
Parmly 405
Pizza lunch to follow
Abstract: Today’s software is large and complex, with systems consisting of millions of lines of code. New developers to a software project face significant challenges in locating code related to their maintenance tasks of fixing bugs or adding new features. Developers can simply be handed a bug and told to fix it–even when they have no idea where to begin.
We can significantly reduce the cost of software maintenance by reducing the time and effort to find and understand code. In this talk, I will outline the challenges in finding and understanding code in a large software project as well as present some software engineering tools that can help. Specifically, I will present techniques that leverage the textual information from comments and identifiers as well as program structure to create intuitive software engineering and program comprehension tools.
Bio: Emily Hill is a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware in Computer and Information Sciences. While an undergraduate at a liberal arts college, Emily researched information retrieval systems, which influenced her thesis topic. Her interdisciplinary thesis focuses on developing natural language processing and information retrieval techniques to improve software engineering tools. Emily spends much of her research time analyzing the natural language clues developers
leave behind in identifiers and comments. Outside of research, Emily enjoys singing opera, fantasy football, and reading.
Week of Dec 7 is National Computer Science Education Week
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to raise the profile of computer science as a transforming industry that drives technology innovation and bolsters economic productivity. The resolution, H. RES. 558, designates the week of December 7 as “National Computer Science Education Week” in honor of Grace Murray Hopper, one of the outstanding pioneers in the field of computer science, who was born on December 9, 1906.
Read more at ACM and csedweek.org
Camille Cobb ’12 Presents Research at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Camille Cobb ’12 presented a research poster at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. The poster entitled “Exploring Data Models for Automatically Generating Tests for Web Applications” is co-authored with Carrie Hopkins ’12 and Professor Sara Sprenkle as well as Katie Baldwin ’10 and Professor Lori Pollock from the University of Delaware.
Many people came to talk to Camille and Katie about their poster, including alumna Anne Van Devender ’09 and the CTO of Amazon Werner Vogels, who especially encouraged them to continue their research.
October 7: The Value of a Liberal Arts Degree: Spotlight on Sciences
Career Services is hosting a panel discussion, focusing on the sciences. Alumni speakers will represent a variety of career industries on each panel. If you have considered majors and/or careers in these areas, come hear how major choice at W&L has played into the career decision-making and planning of these individuals. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from and interact with multiple alums in your field of interest!
When: Friday, October 7, 5 p.m.
Where: Science Center G-14
There will be an informal reception immediately following the panel in the Great Hall of the Science Center.
Science Bios
Chris Diebold ‘09
Chris graduated from W&L with a B.S. in chemistry in June 2009.
Dave Passavant ‘99
Dave graduated from W&L in ’99 with a double major in Computer Science and Business Administration. Dave has recently started a position as Director of Business Design at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Abby Perdue ‘04
A graduate of Washington and Lee University, majoring in biology and English, and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Virginia Behr ‘97
Ombudsman, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Elizabeth DeStefano ‘99
Elizabeth has a Bachelors degree in Psychology and Biology from Washington & Lee University and a Masters degree in Public Health Communications and Marketing from George Washington University. Elizabeth has been with the Washington Regional Transplant Community (WRTC) since the beginning of 2002.
CS Students Present at Summer Research Showcase
Three computer science students presented at the Summer Research Showcase held in Leyburn Library on Monday, October 5.
Will Richardson ’11 presented his work “NuclearEd: A Powerful Resource for Educators.” Will collaborated on the project with Chemistry professor Frank Settle and Computer Science professor Tom Whaley.
Camille Cobb ’12 and Carrie Hopkins ’12 presented their work on “Exploring Data Models for Automatically Generating Tests for Web Applications.” Camille and Carrie collaborated with Computer Science professor Sara Sprenkle as well as Katie Baldwin ’10 and Professor Lori Pollock from the University of Delaware.
Click on the thumbnails above to view larger images.
Seniors’ Conference Experiences
As previously posted, seniors Nicole Carter and Anne Van Devender were awarded scholarships to attend conferences earlier this month. Here is a brief summary of their conference experiences.
Nicole Carter’s Experience at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing
I thought the conference was an amazing experience to see the types of projects that are taking place all over the country. There was definitely a great sense of pride of being a part of this growing conference which helps motivate and inspire students and faculty from different organizations and schools to work in computing or related fields.
The most interesting thing I learned was the current implementation of tele-immersive technology, which allows two people to dance in two different geographic locations and puts them in a virtual 3D space, which looks as if the people are really interacting. This topic was presented by Ruzena Bajcsy who is collaborating with UC-Berkley and Illinois-UC. This research was so fascinating because it gives new meaning to what it means to be in a space, especially when you are not really there.
The most interesting person I met was Prof. Andrew Williams who teaches at Spelman College. His family was so poor that his bed used to be a cardboard box, yet he still was motivated to go to grad school and get his Phd and was able to coach a winning all women robotics team at Spelman.
Anne Van Devender’s Experience at CHI (Computer-Human Interaction)
The conference was great. It really is amazing to see all of the great minds in HCI come together in one place. The whole thing was really inspiring. Just walking down the halls of the convention center, I saw people who I had read about in my HCI course or in Interactions magazine.
I think the most interesting event or talk has to fall into two separate categories: entertainment and interest. The most entertaining talk was on “The Status of Ethnography in Systems Design.” It was basically a debate on whether or not ethnography should be used for design. It was just these two groups presenting absurd powerpoints to argue their points. The most interesting talks to me were the ones on “Online Relationships” and “Computer-mediated Communication.” There is a lot of potential in each of those areas.
As for the most interesting person I met, I think just the graduate students in general. I would say 85% of the talks I went to were led by graduate students and that really surprised me. It was very exciting to see such impressive research being done by students!
Overall, the conference was a great experience and I think more W&L students should attend them so that they can see what research looks like!
Seniors Graduate School Bound
Apparently, seniors Alex Jackson and Anne Van Devender haven’t had enough of school. This fall, they’re both enrolling in Ph.D. programs!
Alex will be pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of North Carolina.
Anne has decided to go to Northwestern University’s Technology and Social Behavior program for her Ph.D.
Congratulations, Anne and Alex!