The demand for computing-related training is at an all-time high. At MIT, there has been a remarkable tide of interest in computer science programs, with heavy enrollment from students studying everything from economics to life sciences eager to learn how computational techniques and methodologies can be used and applied within their primary field.

Launched in 2020, the Common Ground for Computing Education was created through the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing to meet the growing need for enhanced curricula that connect computer science and artificial intelligence with different domains. In order to advance this mission, the Common Ground is bringing experts across MIT together and facilitating collaborations among multiple departments to develop new classes and approaches that blend computing topics with other disciplines.

Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and the chairs of the Common Ground Standing Committee Jeff Grossman, head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor of Environmental Systems; and Asu Ozdaglar, deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the MathWorks Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science discuss here the objectives of the Common Ground, pilot subjects that are underway, and ways theyre engaging faculty to create new curricula for MITs class of computing bilinguals.

Q: What are the objectives of the Common Ground and how does it fit into the mission of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing?

Huttenlocher: One of the core components of the college mission is to educate students who are fluent in both the language of computing and that of other disciplines. Machine learning classes, for example, attract a lot of students outside of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) majors. These students are interested in machine learning for modeling within the context of their fields of interest, rather than inner workings of machine learning itself as taught in Course 6. So, we need new approaches to how we develop computing curricula in order to provide students with a thorough grounding in computing that is relevant to their interests, to not just enable them to use computational tools, but understand conceptually how they can be developed and applied in their primary field, whether it be science, engineering, humanities, business, or design.

The core goals of the Common Ground are to infuse computing education throughout MIT in a coordinated manner, as well as to serve as a platform for multi-departmental collaborations. All classes and curricula developed through the Common Ground are intended to be created and offered jointly by multiple academic departments to meet common needs. Were bringing the forefront of rapidly-changing computer science and artificial intelligence fields together with the problems and methods of other disciplines, so the process has to be collaborative. As much as computing is changing thinking in the disciplines, the disciplines are changing the way people develop new computing approaches. It cant be a stand-alone effort otherwise it wont work.

Q: How is the Common Ground facilitating collaborations and engaging faculty across MIT to develop new curricula?

Grossman: The Common Ground Standing Committee was formed to oversee the activities of the Common Ground and is charged with evaluating how best to support and advance program objectives. There are 29 members on the committee all are faculty experts in various computing areas, and they represent 18 academic departments across all five MIT schools and the college. The structure of the committee very much aligns with the mission of the Common Ground in that it draws from all parts of the Institute. Members are organized into subcommittees currently centered on three primary focus areas: fundamentals of computational science and engineering; fundamentals of programming/computational thinking; and machine learning, data science, and algorithms. The subcommittees, with extensive input from departments, framed prototypes for what Common Ground subjects would look like in each area, and a number of classes have already been piloted to date.

It has been wonderful working with colleagues from different departments. The level of commitment that everyone on the committee has put into this effort has truly been amazing to see, and I share their enthusiasm for pursuing opportunities in computing education.

Q: Can you tell us more about the subjects that are already underway?

Ozdaglar: So far, we have four offerings for students to choose from: in the fall, theres Linear Algebra and Optimization with the Department of Mathematics and EECS, and Programming Skills and Computational Thinking in-Context with the Experimental Study Group and EECS; Modeling with Machine Learning: From Algorithms to Applications in the spring, with disciplinary modules developed by multiple engineering departments and MIT Supply Chain Management; and Introduction to Computational Science and Engineering during both semesters, which is a collaboration between the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Department of Mathematics.

We have had students from a range of majors take these classes, including mechanical engineering, physics, chemical engineering, economics, and management, among others. The response has been very positive. It is very exciting to see MIT students having access to these unique offerings. Our goal is to enable them to frame disciplinary problems using a rich computational framework, which is one of the objectives of the Common Ground.

We are planning to expand Common Ground offerings in the years to come and welcome ideas for new subjects. Some ideas that we currently have in the works include classes on causal inference, creative programming, and data visualization with communication. In addition, this fall, we put out a call for proposals to develop new subjects. We invited instructors from all across the campus to submit ideas for pilot computing classes that are useful across a range of areas and support the educational mission of individual departments. The selected proposals will receive seed funding from the Common Ground to assist in the design, development, and staffing of new, broadly-applicable computing subjects and revision of existing subjects in alignment with the Common Grounds objectives. We are looking explicitly to facilitate opportunities in which multiple departments would benefit from coordinated teaching.

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3 Questions: Blending computing with other disciplines at MIT - MIT News

*** MEDIA ADVISORY ***

DATE: Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021

TIME: 11:30 a.m.

WHERE: Computer Science Building, Room 151, 140 Governors Drive, UMass Amherst

The University of Massachusetts Amherst will announce two transformative investments to further the colleges vision of Computing for the Common Good. One is a major gift from private donors and the other a significant state commitment to enhance and expand computing facilities. Key participants, including Gov. Charlie Baker, will make the announcement at a news conference.

The press can park in nearby Lot 31 on Governors Drive or at the UMass Parking Garage. Please be advised that the university has an indoor mask requirement.

CICS has seen rapid growth of 320% in enrollment since 2010 and in recent years has been forced to turn away academically high-achieving students due to limited space and resources. These new commitments will help expand the colleges facilities, creating a world-class hub for education, research, and innovation that drives Massachusetts forward.

In addition to the donors and Gov. Baker, on hand for the event will be UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy, College of Information and Computer Sciences Dean Laura Haas and UMass President Martin Meehan.

Continued here:

UMass Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences to Unveil Major Private Gift and Significant New State Investment on Wednesday - UMass News...

Department of Computer Science

Grade 7/8: - 34,304 - 50,296 per annumOpen-Ended/Permanent - Full TimeContracted Hours per Week: 35Closing Date: 20-Nov-2021, 7:59:00 AM

Job title:Assistant Professor (Teaching) with an emphasis on the support of novel, compute- and data-intense sciencesVacancy reference:21001299Department:Department of Computer ScienceResponsible to:Head of DepartmentGrade:Grade 7 Grade 8Salary Range:34,304 - 50,296 per annum

Working arrangements:The role is full time but we will consider requests for flexible working arrangements including potential job shares

Durham University

A globally outstanding center of teaching and research excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting Durham is a university like no other.

We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things in the world.

As part of Durham University, youll be working with exceptional minds, all with the desire to ask, and answer the big questions. Access to leading-edge facilities and an active contributor to the global research and university community means youll be part of an international and diverse network of partners spanning the worlds best research institutions, organisations, and businesses. And all this within the evocative and historic surroundings of the city, county, and community that is Durham.

We find it easy to be proud of the extraordinary people we have at Durham. We offer the inspiration, they achieve the outstanding. We invite you to join them.

Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in the University. We are committed to equality: if for any reason you have taken a career break or periods of leave that may have impacted your career paths, such as maternity, adoption, or parental leave, you may wish to disclose this in your application.The selection committee will recognise that this may have reduced the quantity of your research accordingly.

Durham Universitys Athena Swan institutional award recognises and celebrates good practice in recruiting and supporting the development of women. We have also signed up for the Race Equality Charter, a national framework for improving the representation, progression, and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education.

The Department

The Department of Computer Science is rapidly expanding it tripled in size over the last 4 years and now has around 50 academic faculty. A new building, joint with Mathematical Sciences, to house the expanded Department has recently been inaugurated, and it hosts all our academics, our students, and experimental kit. The current Department has research strengths in algorithms and complexity, in artificial intelligence and human systems, networks, scientific computing, and computer vision, visualisation, and imaging.

Research-led teaching is a key strength of the Department, which came 9th in the current Complete University Guide. The department offers BSc and MEng undergraduate degrees and master's degrees in data science, business analytics, and scientific computing and data analysis. The size of its student cohort has more than trebled in the past five years. The Department has an exceptionally strong External Advisory Board that provides strategic support for developing research and education, consisting of high-profile industrialists and academics. The Departments students have been particularly successful recently in competitions such as the inaugural UK Student Cluster Competition.

As part of its recent creation of a research group around scientific computing, the department has intensified its collaboration with Durhams Advanced Research Computing (ARC) directorate and Durhams three national and regional supercomputing installations (Bede, Cosma, and Hamilton), it has started to install its own set of experimental hardware, and it has established several industry collaborations (NVIDIA, Intel and The RSC Group).

This post offers an exciting opportunity to make a contribution to the development of the departments teaching and curriculum, and in particular, to anchor novel compute systems within its teaching and research landscape. This includes the active engagement with the industry to maintain and intensify our industry links. The post also will help to roll out training and teaching around compute-intense research into other Durham departments and University-wide initiatives, and you will help us to provide a world-leading computational infrastructure beyond standard computing as provided by centralised University services to our students and staff. You hence will be required to undertake significant computing support for both teaching and research with an emphasis on novel, experimental hardware installations (research and teaching clusters). Your teaching duties will be adjusted accordingly to allow time for this activity.

The successful candidate will ideally be in post by 1 April 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter.

For more information, please visit our Department pages athttps://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/

Assistant Professors (Teaching) at Durham

The University is committed to enabling all of our colleagues to achieve their full potential. We promote and maintain an inclusive and supportive environment to ensure that all colleagues can thrive.Assistant Professors (Teaching) contribute to teaching, innovation, and citizenship whilst fully focussing on the key skills which will secure their progression.Teaching quality and innovation is critical to ensure a first-class learning environment and curricula for all of our students. You will be supported to develop your teaching expertise and to engage in teaching innovation to embed our student experience.

All of our academic colleagues are encouraged to engage in wider citizenship to enhance their own development, to support their department and wider discipline, and to contribute to the wider student experience.

You will be expected to engage in scholarship related to pedagogy, noting that any other independent research is not a required part of this post. The appointment will be on the Universitys Teaching Track career path, which provides clearly defined opportunities for progression against defined criteria.

We are confident that our recruitment process allows us to attract and select the best international talent to Durham. We, therefore, offer a reduced probation period of 1 year for our Assistant Professors (Teaching), and thereafter, subject to satisfactory performance, you will be confirmed in post.

Assistant Professor (Teaching) with an emphasis on the support of novel, compute-and data-intense sciences

Applicants must demonstrate teaching excellence in the field ofComputer Science and wider areas of computational sciences and compute-intense data analyses,with the ability to teach our students to an exceptional standard and to fully engage in the services, citizenship, and values of the University. The University provides a working and teaching environment that is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect. Candidates will be expected to demonstrate these key principles as part of the assessment process.

The candidate shall actively engage with novel hardware and software trends and transfer insight from industry into our curriculum and research landscape, such that Durham students are trained with the latest technology and can seamlessly join the best high-tech companies in the world, while our research can rely on a skill set and training environment that allows us to use next-generation technology today. This requires beyond the instruction capabilities and experience a strong background in how to maintain, design, and run experimental, novel computing platforms.

While Grade 7 candidates may have limited direct experience of the requirements for the post, they must outline their experience, skills, and achievements to date which demonstrate that they meet or that they have the potential to achieve the essential criteria. The post will involve a significant teaching load, which may extend into the summer period.

Key responsibilities:

How to Apply

We prefer to receive applications online.

As a University we foster a collegiate community of extraordinary people aligned to the Universitysvalues. Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) are a key part of the Universitys Strategy and a central part of everything we do.At Durham, we actively work towards providing an environment where our staff and students can study, work and live in a community that is supportive and inclusive, and in doing so, recruit the worlds best candidates from all backgrounds and identities. Its important to us that all of our colleagues are aligned to both our values and commitment to EDI. We, therefore, ask that as part of your application you provide a statement (of no more than 1 side of A4) that outlines work in which you have been involved in which demonstrates your commitment to EDI and our values.

Information if you have a disability

The University welcomes applications from disabled people. We are committed to ensuring fair treatment throughout the recruitment process. We will make adjustments to support the interview process wherever it is reasonable to do so and, where successful, adjustments will be made to support people within their role.

If you are unable to complete your application via our recruitment system, please get in touch with us one.recruitment@durham.ac.uk.

What to Submit

All applicants are asked to submit:

Where possible we request that you provide web links to these which the hiring Department will access to read your work.The application form contains fields in which to enter each of the web links.

Your work should be uploaded as PDFs as part of your application in our recruitment system. Please ensure that your PDFs arenotlarger than 2mb. Please note that your work may be read by colleagues from across the Department and evaluated against the current REF criteria;

Please save all application documents with your name and document type as PDF files.

We will notify you on the status of your application at various points throughout the selection process, via automated emails from our e-recruitment system.Please check your spam/junk folder periodically to ensure you receive all emails.

Referees

You should provide details of 3 academic referees and the details of your current line manager so that we may seek an employment reference (if they are not listed as an academic referee).

Please note:

Next Steps

All applications will be considered; our usual practice is for colleagues across the Department to read the submitted work of long-listed candidates.

Short-listed candidates will be invited to the University and will have the opportunity to meet key members of the Department. The assessment for the post will normally includea presentation to staff and students in the Department followed by an interviewand we anticipate that the assessments and interviews will take place over two days in or around March 2022.

In the event that you are unable to attend in person on the date offered, it may not be possible to offer you an interview on an alternative date.

Person specification

Teaching

Candidates will develop and deliver high-quality teaching that contributes to providing a high-quality learning environment and curricula which enable our students to achieve their potential.

Essential Teaching Criteria Grade 7

Essential Teaching Criteria Grade 8

Scholarship and Educational Impact

Candidates will have the ability to engage in scholarly activity which contributes to pedagogical practice and understanding within the department.

Candidates must be able to discuss (or evidence) work undertaken (or which would be undertaken) in preparation for teaching and keeping up to date with developments in the subject area.

The format will depend on the discipline and the candidates career to date but evidence of scholarship and educational impact may include some of the following (or similar) activities:

Essential Scholarship Criteria Grade 8

Candidates must be able to evidence work undertaken in preparation for teaching and keeping up to date with developments in the subject area.

The format will depend on the discipline and the candidates career to date but evidence of scholarship and educational impact may include some of the following (or similar) activities:

Services, Citizenship and Values

Candidates may be required to undertake some administrative duties within the Department related to the delivery of teaching, mainly related to taught programmes.

Candidates must also positively contribute to fostering a collegial environment; as well as demonstrating their commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Essential Services, Citizenship and Values criteria Grade 7

Essential Services, Citizenship and Values criteria Grade 8

Desirable Criteria - Grade 7 and Grade 8

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Assistant Professor, Teaching in Computer Science job with DURHAM UNIVERSITY | 269406 - Times Higher Education (THE)

Specific areas of the human brain process different functions, such as the auditory cortex for hearing and the olfactory cortex for smell. Among these functional areas, the single largest is devoted to vision. The dominance of the visual cortex may not be surprising given the importance of sight to the human species. But science still has a lot to learn about the way input from our eyes is represented by our brains.

This specialized work within neuroscience is called retinotopy or retinotopic mapping, and a leading researcher in the field isYalin Wang, an associate professor of computer science and engineering in theIra A. Fulton Schools of Engineeringat Arizona State University. When our eyes register a given scene, such as the example shown in the disk on the left, the neurons in our brains display it in a very different way, as shown by the artistically rendered retinotopic map shown at the center. Yalin Wang, an associate professor at Arizona State University, has published a groundbreaking new research paper on retinotopic mapping in the V1 area of the brain, shown on the right. Wang also has been awarded a National Eye Institute grant to launch a four-year project focused on building a retinotopic atlas that can improve scientific understanding of healthy visual function as well as the nature of vision disorders. Illustration adaptation by Rhonda Hitchcock-Mast/ASU Download Full Image

Retinotopic maps depict the way neurons in the brain display our visual field, which is what we see or the way light stimulates our retinas, Wang said. Our current research examines a specific area in the brain called V1, which is one of 14 areas devoted to visual processing. So, its a very defined space, but our understanding has remained limited.

Wang says this type of research applies an advanced form of magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, technology. While structural MRI devices are widely employed in clinical practice, they reveal only static conditions. However, neuroscience needs to extract data from dynamic processes. For example, human metabolism changes from morning to afternoon and again during the evening, and this flux means brain imaging signals and associated noise or interference levels change, too.

The capacity to operate in such fluctuating conditions makes newer high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, particularly valuable. This technology can generate live or in vivoretinotopic maps, and this means retinotopy can now significantly contribute to understanding human sight.

Even so, Wang says quantifying these maps or describing them mathematically remains particularly difficult. The low spatial resolution and low signal-to-noise ratios of current fMRI scans mean existing quantification methods do not preserve the surface topology or structure of the visual cortex and often introduce large geometric distortions.

The challenge comes in understanding how our brains convey what we see our two-dimensional visual field onto the cortical surface of our brain, which is a curved, three-dimensional surface, said Wang, who is a faculty member in theSchool of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, one of the seven Fulton Schools.

Its similar, though in reverse, to the difficulty of displaying our three-dimensional Earth in two-dimensional maps. So, Wang and his team have applied differential geometry to address this challenge in a groundbreakingnew paperpublished by the journalMedical Image Analysis. Their innovative work also has secured support from theNational Eye Institutefor a new $1.5 million, four-year research project.

In the published study, Wang and his team explain a framework they have developed to successfully quantify retinotopic maps in V1. They did so through the application of computational conformal geometry and quasiconformal Teichmller theory. Conformal geometry maintains the angles of lines representing a surface, but not necessarily the distances. Quasiconformal Teichmller theory then works to encode more complex structures by generalizing from discrete conformal maps.

In combining these approaches, the research team created a process that smooths out fMRI data signals, corrects for errors in their topologic structure and quantifies the mapping through a Beltrami coefficient, which is a differential geometry concept that measures angle distortions in quasiconformal maps. The results rigorously and completely characterize retinotopic maps.

We succeeded in applying this new framework to analyze a large set of retinotopic maps in V1 from theHuman Connectome Project, which is the most significant retinotopy dataset available, Wang said. We found that this method generates an accurate quantitative description that is fully reconstructable. Consequently, this approach can be applied to improve our understanding of visual cortical organization not only in V1, but in other visual areas, too.

Moving forward from the results of the journal paper, the new National Eye Institute-funded project seeks to build a retinotopic atlas through hierarchical Bayesian analysis, which is a form of statistical modeling used to develop computational strategies.

Such complex work will involve close collaboration withZhong-Lin Lu, who researches the psychological connection between perception and cognition at New York University. Other collaborators include researchers from the University of Southern California, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the University of Montreal in Canada. This broad array of support will provide clinical data for analysis that will improve the accuracy and impact of the projects developments.

Building this kind of atlas will be a major effort. But the result can permit more meaningful understanding of healthy visual function as well as the nature of related disorders, Wang said. We also want to understand what is happening not only in a general sense, but more specifically what is happening with different types of patients and different types of brains.

Eventually, Wang said, the team hopes to equip clinicians with tools to assess a given patient over time and inform them that, for example, they have a 30% chance of developing glaucoma within the coming five years. This knowledge can enable early intervention and help yield the best possible health outcomes.

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Mapping the mind's eye | ASU News - ASU Now

What does a typical work day look like for Kristie Curameng Bradford, MBA 05? Well, theres really no such thing and thats precisely why she loves her job.

No days look similar, says Bradford, director of intellectual property at IBM. There are so many things I could be doing in one day.

In her current role, she is responsible for monetizing innovations, from strategy development to transaction execution. Her focus is in quantum computing, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and monetization via Venture Capital and Private Equity channels.

In her prior role as a business development executive, Bradford led healthcare-specific mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnership for IBM Watson, the well-known supercomputer best known for beating out contestants Jeopardy! in 2011. Of course, Watson is much more than that AI has come a long way in the past decade.

I help businesses think about whether they need to grow via partnership, create a joint venture, or actually acquire a business outright, Bradford says. When you do any of thatwhether its closing a deal or creating a strategy the day-to-day looks very different.

Business and technology are by necessity in constant collaboration. Bradfords position at IBM provides the perfect opportunity to put her expertise and business acumen to use. But she also gets to be a student of technology who is always learning something new.

One of the things that attracted me to IBM is that we use the word transform and we mean it, she says.

When people ask me what its like to be a part of this company, its interesting because were asked to look at the same things people have been looking at, but almost in an upside-down, inside-out way, she says. Its how can it be versus how it is today. Those are the fun things that we get to do.

To those she mentors, Bradford says that understanding business fundamentals is as important as understanding innovation. Lots of people say they want to join technology companies, and sign up for computer science classes, Bradford said. She believes that todays students should broaden their perspectives to include stages of business from the lab to the market, and understand how disciplines such as operations, sales and marketing, and finance translate to an innovations commercial success. I think tech-savvy and business acumen will be essential for the next generation of Smith students.

She also recommends taking time to strike a balance: building a successful and fulfilling career, while not forgetting the other cherished aspects of your life. She cites advice she received from her uncle, a role model in her life, as she was graduating from her MBA program at Smith: Time is precious, and you dont get it back.

Everyone else will prioritize themselves, so you must make sure to prioritize yourself, she says. Just take the time to be with the people that you love.

By Erica Spaeth. Spaeth is a 2023 MBA Candidate and a Fort and Smith Fellow. Originally from Potomac, Md., Spaeth worked in digital marketing, publishing, and most recently operations management, leading her to come to Maryland Smith.

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Thriving, Where Business and Technology Meet | Maryland Smith - Robert H. Smith School of Business