Category Archives: Computer Science

Capito, Manchin Announce $3.3 Million from National Science Foundation for Research in West Virginia – Shelley Moore Capito

CHARLESTON, W.Va. U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today announced $3,370,526 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research at three West Virginia universities.

The National Science Foundation provides incredible opportunities for our youth, while giving our higher education faculty the resources they need to inspire students to pursue challenging projects in their respective fields. Im glad to see this funding heading to Marshall University, Shepherd University, and West Virginia University. Im proud of the work that continues to be done at our colleges and universities, and I will continue to advocate for the resources they need to be successful, Senator Capito said.

The National Science Foundation continues to be a strong partner for the Mountain State and our universities, investing in important research and fostering hands-on educational opportunities for students across the state. I am pleased NSF is investing in seven different research initiatives at West Virginia University, Marshall University and Shepherd University, and I look forward to seeing the impacts of these studies. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I will continue to fight for funding to support critical research here in West Virginia, Senator Manchin said.

Individual awards listed below:

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Capito, Manchin Announce $3.3 Million from National Science Foundation for Research in West Virginia - Shelley Moore Capito

Jeannette Wing Appointed Executive Vice President for Research | Office of the President – Columbia University

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

It is a great pleasure to announce my appointment of Jeannette Wing to serve as the next Executive Vice President for Research, responsible for managing Columbias research activities across our New York campuses and abroad, effective September 1, 2021. Jeannette is currently the Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science. She brings to her new role the skills of an accomplished scientist and a gifted administrator with a distinguished career in the academy, industry, and government.

Jeannette came to Columbia in 2017, after having worked at Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University, and the National Science Foundation, to lead the Data Science Institute, where she and her team have embraced the power of data science to transform the Universitys teaching and research capacities. Under her leadership, the Institute has supported important research initiatives such as personalized medicine, understanding the impacts of climate change, and advancing the next generation of wireless technologies. The Institute has also established interdisciplinary research and educational programs for faculty and students, encouraged the growth of and access to real-world datasets, and supported large-scale studies of COVID-19 treatments. Jeannette has also been involved personally in recruiting new faculty and building collaborations within and beyond the University. Further, in recognition of the racial equity gaps in data science research and education, she and her team have created a Task Force on Racial Equity, launched a Racial Equity Action Plan, and appointed an Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Institute.

As Columbias Executive Vice President for Research, Jeannette will advance the offices mandate to grow our research efforts in ways that align with the challenges and opportunities ahead, building on the Universitys longstanding strengths, supporting collaborations across disciplines, and encouraging work that takes advantage of anticipated new sources of funding from the federal government. Importantly, Jeannette is committed to promoting fundamental research with real-world applications in the realms of artificial intelligence, quantum science, semiconductors, robotics, biotechnology, energy technology, cybersecurity, and material science, thereby furthering what I call the Fourth Purpose of the University. She will also expand our partnerships with organizations in the business, nonprofit, higher education, and government sectors. Uniting all of this work is a commitment to increasing the presence of historically underrepresented groups in research fields through various pipeline, recruitment, and advancement initiatives.

I will share details on the search for the next Director of the Data Science Institute as they take shape. I am very grateful to Jeannette for taking on these responsibilities and for her service to the institution, especially so at this extraordinary moment in national advancement and funding of university research.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger

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Jeannette Wing Appointed Executive Vice President for Research | Office of the President - Columbia University

Jeannette Wing Promoted To Executive Vice President For Research – Patch.com

BY ZACHARY SCHERMELE AUGUST 18, 2021

Jeannette Wing, the Avanessians director of Columbia's Data Science Institute and a professor of computer science, will become the next executive vice president for research, University President Lee Bollinger announced on Wednesday. She will officially start her new role on Sept. 1.

Wing has led the Data Science Institute since 2017. Under her tenure, she has supported a variety of research initiatives in personalized medicine, the impacts of climate change, wireless technology, and other areas.

Wing is widely recognized for her scholarly leadership and contributions in computer science and data science. Following the publication of her essay "Computational Thinking" in 2006, she is credited with innovating the application of core computer science principles to other disciplines. Her current research focus is artificial intelligence.

"Jeannette will advance the office's mandate to grow our research efforts in ways that align with the challenges and opportunities ahead, building on the University's longstanding strengths, supporting collaborations across disciplines, and encouraging work that takes advantage of anticipated new sources of funding from the federal government," Bollinger wrote in an email to students and faculty.

Wing joined Columbia after working at Microsoft, where she was corporate vice president of Microsoft Research. Prior to that, Wing was the head of the department of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. During that time, she also briefly served at the National Science Foundation as the assistant director for the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

The coronavirus pandemic leveled an unprecedented blow to academic research at Columbia and its peer institutions. In spring 2020, research at wet labslabs equipped with the right ventilation, plumbing, and other resources to conduct hands-on scientific experiments that were logistically difficult to conduct remotelywas brought to a standstill, with only COVID-19-related research being conducted. The delay created a backlog of data for some researchers.

The pandemic also brought major financial losses to the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and hit the University's endowment in a way that could have an indirect, negative effect on its research capabilities. But Wing insists that now, over a year after many of Columbia's labs were physically shuttered, research productivity is high again, and she is excited about new federal funding opportunities.

"I don't actually know what the situation will be like in September, but what I can assure you is that wet lab research, where people have to come on campus, has continued throughout COVID-19, and the good news is that anything that was essentially non-wet lab research, that has been able to continuenot a problem," she said.

The announcement of Wing's appointment comes during what Bollinger referred to as an "extraordinary moment in national advancement and funding of university research." In recent months, Congress has introduced significant legislationnotably the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021that, if passed, would make historic investments to further the research capabilities of higher education institutions.

"We're all holding our breath, because you know how Congress operates," Wing said.

The bill was originally introduced in May 2020 as the Endless Frontiers Act, but died in committee in both houses.

The spirit of the legislation was revived this year in the Innovation and Competition Act, which was passed by the Senate in June and, pending House approval, will invest around $200 billion toward advancing the United States' "global research competitiveness." A significant portion of that money would go to higher education institutions like Columbia in the form of grants, which postdoctoral students and researchers rely on to fund their work.

"This is the reason why I'm excited about this new position, because if it does happen, and assuming it will happen, I want to help Columbia be prepared for these new opportunities," Wing said.

While at the Data Science Institute, Wing worked to promote diversity among researchers by creating a task force on and an action plan for racial equity. She also appointed an associate director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and through pipeline and recruitment initiatives, hopes to continue that work in her new role.

"I also, from my own experience as a researcher, have seen the benefits of having a diverse team," she said. "Diversity along all dimensions is very important for advancing science and engineering and all disciplines, in terms of research."

Senior staff writer Zach Schermele can be contacted at zachary.schermele@columbiaspectator.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZachSchermele.

Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.

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Jeannette Wing Promoted To Executive Vice President For Research - Patch.com

Making machines that make robots, and robots that make themselves – MIT News

After a summer of billionaires in space, many people have begun to wonder when they will get their turn. The cost of entering space is currently too high for the average citizen, but the work of PhD candidate Martin Nisser may help change that. His work on self-assembling robots could be key to reducing the costs that help determine the price of a ticket.

Nissers fascination with engineering has been a consistent theme throughout a life filled with change. Born to Swedish parents, he spent a decade in Greece before moving to the UAE, and eventually to Scotland for his undergraduate degree. No matter what new school he attended, his favorite subjects remained the same. The idea of using math and physics to build something tangible always clicked with me, says Nisser. As a kid, I had always wanted to be an inventor.

By the time he completed his undergraduate degree, Nisser knew what he aspired to invent. His senior capstone project had drawn upon multiple disciplines and provided the perfect introduction to robotics. We had to sift through all of the different things we learned in college and combine them to do something interesting. Multidisciplinarity is often essential in robotics and part of what makes it so alluring to me, he says.

Designing robots prepared for space

After discovering his love for robotics, Nisser enrolled in a masters program in robotics, systems, and control at ETH Zurich, during which time he met a Harvard professor who directed the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory and invited Nisser to write his thesis there. His thesis involved building robots that could fold to assemble themselves. We used layers of materials including shape memory polymers, which are smart materials that can be programmed to changed their shape under different temperature conditions, says Nisser. This allowed us to program 2D multilayer sheets to fold in particular ways in order to acquire targeted 3D configurations.

The experience brought Nisser to his current interest in exporing how robots can be automatically fabricated using both top-down processes like 3D printing and bottom-up processes like self-assembly. He notes that this engineering goal opens a wide door of academic questions. The multidisciplinarity required to build these engineering systems from mechanical and electrical engineering to computer science means youre always learning something new. Every once in a while, you get to apply a technique youve learned in one discipline to another, in a way it hasnt been used before, he says. Thats usually when something interesting happens.

Prior to beginning his PhD, Nisser also researched reconfigurable robots at the European Space Agency. This project helped him realize he could combine his passion for robotics with his interest in space. Because every system launched into space has to fit within the confines of a rocket firing, space agencies are interested in structures that can self-reconfigure between smaller and larger shapes, he says. I saw a great opportunity to build on what Id learned about self-folding robotics. I developed algorithms that would allow large numbers of spacecraft modules to move together, attach to one another, and then reconfigure together into a target shape.

Now a PhD student in the HCI Engineering Group at MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Nisser has partnered with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative to continue studying self-assembly in space. His team is developing a new kind of 3D printing technique adapted to the space environment, allowing them to create novel structures without the constraints of gravity. He recently tested his work on a parabolic flight, which allowed him to experience weightlessness for several intervals of 20 seconds. This December, the project will be launched to the International Space Station with SpaceX for a 30-day science mission.

Making hardware more accessible

To Nisser, studying self-configuration and self-assembly is also key to addressing important social issues. He is particularly interested in how his research can improve sustainability and make advanced technology more affordable. We typically build systems to perform a specific task, like a chair or a car. However the long-term vision is to be able to create systems from modular, smart components that let the system reconfigure and adjust its functionality to diverse needs, Nisser says. By addressing core challenges along the way, we aim to develop technology for the short term too.

Nisser has already begun to address this challenge by constructing LaserFactory, an add-on device for only $150 that connects to laser cutters and produces custom-designed devices ranging from electronic wearables to functional drones. The fabrication process requires no further instructions to operate finished drones can fly straight off the assembly line. The device has already been featured by the BBC and other outlets for its ingenuity. The ability to print fully functional robots is also important for space, where creating on-demand electromechanical devices without any human intervention is paramount to enabling long-duration missions, he adds.

In his free time, Nisser furthers his goal of democratizing technology by teaching introductory programming to incarcerated women. His lessons are through Brave Behind Bars, a program he and grad student Marisa Gaetz created last year after learning about the U.S. mass incarceration rate. Almost one in a hundred people in the U.S. today are incarcerated, and more than 80 percent of those will return to prison within a few years of release he says. Providing incarcerated people with educational opportunities that promote success in todays digital world is one of the most effective ways to help reduce this recidivism.

After graduating, Nisser hopes to continue teaching and conducting robotics research by pursuing a career as a professor. He looks forward to doing more projects related to space and hardware accessibility. The closer we get toward automating assembly, the sooner we can reduce costs and increase accessibility to all kinds of advanced hardware systems, says Nisser.

Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child helped increase awareness of the tremendous benefits of connecting people to the internet by letting people share and create things digitally. The same analogy translates to hardware, he says. By distributing fabrication via inexpensive printers or self-assembling hardware that remove the need for engineering expertise, we create an opportunity for people to share and create things physically. And thats good for everyone.

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Making machines that make robots, and robots that make themselves - MIT News

Can You Last a Year on Mars? NASA Is Recruiting Crew Members for Analog Mission – SciTechDaily

Credit: NASA

Want to try living on Mars, but not sure you want to experience the nine-month flight time to get there? NASA is looking for applicants to serve as crew members for a one-year analog mission in a habitat to simulate life on the Red Planet, beginning in Fall 2022. All you have to do is get to Houston, Texas, and youll even get paid.

NASA is looking for highly motivated individuals to participate in the year-long test to see how astronauts might respond to the rigors of a long-duration, but Earth-based Martian simulation.

Requirements for applying is that you are a healthy, motivated U.S. citizen or permanent resident, age 30 to 55 years old, nonsmoker and proficient in English for effective communication between crew and mission control. Crew selection will follow standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants.

Mars Dune Alpha Conceptual Render: Visualization on Mars. Credit: ICON

NASA will be doing a series of these analog missions known as Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, and they hope to set up three one-year Mars surface simulations, with subsequent missions in 2024 and 2025. The simulations will be based at NASAs Johnson Space Center, with four crew members for each simulation who will live and work in a 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed module, called Mars Dune Alpha. NASA says the analog missions will support research to develop methods and technologies to prevent and resolve potential problems on future human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars.

Mars Dune Alpha will be a 3D printed structure that will simulate a realistic Mars habitat to support long-duration, exploration-class space missions. Credit: NASA/ICON

The analog is critical for testing solutions to meet the complex needs of living on the Martian surface said Grace Douglas, lead scientist for NASAs Advanced Food Technology research effort at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. Simulations on Earth will help us understand and counter the physical and mental challenges astronauts will face before they go.

Some of the challenges the test subjects will face will be resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays, and other environmental stressors.

Earth-based astronauts work on a simulated Mars exercise. Credit: NASA

Many space experts and behavioral scientists believe one of the biggest challenges facing human Mars missions will be limited and delayed communications with Earth.

A huge watershed moment will be when we dont have real-time communications with Earth, said Dr. Albert Holland, a senior operations psychologist who leads NASAs Behavioral Health and Performance Group at JSC, in an interview with me in 2020. I think people underestimate how much this will change space exploration as we know it today.

Communication to the Moon has a 1.3 second delay, so real-time conversations are still possible, where crews can still feel connected to Earth, their families, and ground control. But once a comm lag is introduced, missions will undergo a radical change.

Crews will need more autonomy and more self-sufficiency, requiring overlap in key technical areas in case one crew member is incapacitated or lost, Holland said. Crews will need a stronger, vertical, hierarchical line of authority compared to what we currently have on station, where the chain of command is rather flat. There will be a huge operational difference between a vehicle in LEO and something out beyond the comfortable, real-time communications point.

Previous analog astronauts have tested a ground-penetrating radar named ScanMars at a Mar-like area in Oman. Credit: OEWF Austrian Space Forum

Some of the crew tasks NASA anticipates for these analog missions include simulated spacewalks, scientific research, use of virtual reality and robotic controls, and communications. The results will provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions.

NASA says they are especially interested in people with a masters degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required. Candidates who have completed two years of work toward a doctoral program in STEM, or completed a medical degree, or a test pilot program will also be considered. Additionally, with four years of professional experience, applicants who have completed military officer training or a Bachelor of Science in a STEM field may be considered.

NASA says this mission is for you if you have a strong desire for unique, rewarding adventures and are interested in contributing to NASAs work in preparing for the first human journey to Mars.

Originally published on Universe Today.

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Can You Last a Year on Mars? NASA Is Recruiting Crew Members for Analog Mission - SciTechDaily

Data mining tools combat COVID-19 misinformation and identify symptoms – UC Riverside

UC Riverside computer scientists are developing tools to help track and monitor COVID-19 symptoms and to sift through misinformation about the disease on social media.

Using Google Trends data, a group led by Vagelis Papalexakis, an associate professor in the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering; and Jia Chen, an assistant professor of teaching, developed an algorithm that identified three symptoms unique to COVID-19 compared to the flu: ageusia loss of the tongues taste function shortness of breath, and anosmia, or loss of smell. The algorithm was developed in collaboration with two graduate students, Md Imrul Kaish and Md Jakir Hossain, at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Much of the work using Google Trends for flu has focused on forecasting the flu season, Papalexakis said. We, on the other hand, used it to see if we could find a needle in a haystack: symptoms unique to COVID-19 among all the flu-like symptoms people search for.

The researchers located symptoms on Google Trends for 2019 and 2020 and used a technique they called nonnegative discriminative analysis, or DNA, to extract terms that were unique to one dataset relative to the other.

We assumed that symptom searches in 2019 would lead to influenza or other respiratory ailments, while searches for the same symptoms in 2020 could be either, Chen said. Using DNA, we were able to find the difference between the two datasets. This happened to be terms clinicians have already identified as unique to COVID-19, showing that our approach works.

Papalexakis and Chen expect their work will help epidemiologists and other public health experts track and monitor COVID-19 using Google Trends as a proxy for hospital data.

Google trends data is very noisy, but hospital data is not publicly available. People might search for symptoms because they are experiencing them or because they have heard of them and want to know more, Papalexakis said. Searches reflect interest in symptoms better than people actively experiencing them, but given the lack of other data, we think this tool could help researchers understand symptoms better.

Chen said that the algorithm is simple and easy to implement as part of a potential tool that can help scientists researching other diseases learn about potential symptoms.

The paper, COVID-19 or Flu? Discriminative Knowledge Discovery of COVID-19 Symptoms from Google Trends Data, was presented at epiDAMIK 2021, a workshop on data mining for advancing epidemiological knowledge. The workshop was organized as part of the largest annual data science conference, the Association for Computing Machinerys, or ACM, Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. The paper is available here.

Papalexakis and UC Riverside doctoral student William Shiao are also developing a tool that not only identifies COVID-19 misinformation but shows why the information is flagged as false in relation to a database of scientific articles about research on coronaviruses.

Papalexakis and Shiao used 90,000 articles from the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge (CORD-19) prepared by the White House and a coalition of research groups, and collected 20,000 articles in the wild with misinformation about the novel coronavirus. Using a similarity matrix-based embedding method they called KI2TE, the articles were linked to a set of reference documents and interpreted. The documents used for reference were a set of academic papers on coronavirus research included in the CORD-19 dataset.

When tested on articles that had been labeled by humans as false or identified by Google Fact Check as false, their method not only correctly identified the false stories but also pointed to the scientific sources that corroborated the systems decision.

We are not interested in censoring what people see. We want to go beyond hiding something altogether or simply showing a warning label, Papalexakis said. We want to also show them sources to educate them.

Although the tool developed by Papalexakis and Shiao is a prototype under active research development, it could eventually be incorporated into a smartphone app or into social media platforms like Facebook.

The results of this research were presented at the Knowledge Graphs for Online Discourse Analysis workshop organized as part of the ACM Web Conference, and the paper, KI2TE: Knowledge-Infused InterpreTable Embeddings for COVID-19 Misinformation Detection, is available here.

Originally posted here:

Data mining tools combat COVID-19 misinformation and identify symptoms - UC Riverside

Creating the Materials of the Future Using Machine Learning – USC Viterbi | School of Engineering – USC Viterbi School of Engineering

A machine learning model, called a recurrent neural network (RNN), is being used to predict a better polymer structure with high energy storage capacity. A polymer structure is fed to the RNN model (the green gear), resulting in a list of polymer structures which likely have better energy storage capacity (the red tetrahedrons). Illustration/Chris Kim

As the world sees rapid advancements in areas such as renewable energy, water management, transport, and quantum computing, the need for new types of advanced materials to support these emerging technologies is increasing. However, developing new materials is laborioustaking decades from concept to implementation.

The manufacturing sector is now turning to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning methods for faster materials discovery. But for those looking to pursue a career in this brave new world of materials engineering, there have been few graduate degree options tailored to the integration of materials with machine learning, until now.

To address this significant knowledge gap, the USC Viterbi School of Engineerings Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science has launched the new M.S. in Materials Engineering with Machine Learning, a first-of-its-kind Master of Science course, taught by experts in computational materials science and machine learning methods.

Chair of the Mork Family Department, Andrea Hodge

Andrea Hodge, Arthur B. Freeman Professor and chair of the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, said that the course reflected an emerging interdisciplinary field that harnessed data and combined modeling and simulations, experiments, and machine learning technologies to create a new approach for materials discovery and manufacturing.

Currently there are several online courses on materials engineering and courses on many aspects of machine learning, but there is no MS degree program that provides machine learning integration into materials engineering, Hodge said.

An increasing number of companies are incorporating a data-driven approach in their business models, she said. However, current materials engineering curricula are not addressing the demand due to the lack of integrated machine learning education.

Machine learning can be used to discover new materials for a range of applications including 3-D printing, creating materials and membranes for water filtration, quantum information and computing, and to accelerate autonomous manufacturing and processes.

Machine learning can also be used in research and development, such as autonomous laboratories and high-throughput screening based on materials databases to develop high energy density capacitors, novel catalysts, solar panels with improved efficiency, and new drugs to combat viruses and diseases.

Ken-ichi Nomura, a senior lecturer in the Mork Family Department, said that machine learning would bring a paradigm shift in materials engineering.

The aim is not to replace existing materials engineering education, rather reinforce it with new skillsets to significantly accelerate materials development and innovation, he said.

Ken-ichi Nomura, Senior lecturer in the Mork Family Department

The new masters degree program focuses on machine learning that will allow the materials scientists and engineers of the future to find useful information for materials discovery using large amounts of data that humans otherwise would not have the capacity to process.

Nomura said that machine learning has shown tremendous success in areas such as computer visionwhere systems can learn information from digital imagery and videosas well as natural language processing, process automation, and other areas.

However, domain expert knowledge is essential to fully take advantage of the power of these new technologies, because machine learning technologies are not directly transferrable to materials, Nomura said. The new masters degree program will train the future generation workforce and offer exciting opportunities for USC graduates in industries that have incorporated data-driven discovery and materials development.

Commencing in fall 2021, the program is aimed at graduate students with a broad range of science and engineering backgrounds, who are interested in the intersection of materials and machine learningincluding students with a B.S. in physical sciences and engineering disciplines. The program is also geared toward those in the industry looking to expand their skill sets and apply machine learning techniques to their research and development efforts in materials and processing projects.

The program will cover the following key areas:

Students will also have an opportunity to present results from their projects at the annual Mork Family Department student symposium.

Priya Vashishta, Fluor Chair in Chemical Engineering

There are also opportunities at startups that are using machine learning, as well as research careers in universities, industry, and at national laboratories, said Professor Priya Vashishta, the Fluor Chair in Chemical Engineering.

Mork Family Department faculty who will be teaching in the program include Nomura, who has research expertise in high-performance simulations and machine learning, as well as Vashishta, Director of the Materials Genome Innovation for Computational Softwarecenter, who will focus on computational materials modeling and machine learning. Rajiv Kalia, professor of physics and astronomy, computer science, chemical engineering and materials science, will teach deep learning methods and their applications. Additional materials science, machine learning and data analytics classes taught by experts within MFD and USC Viterbi have been included as part of the elective courses to provide a broad educational experience in materials engineering with machine learning.

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Creating the Materials of the Future Using Machine Learning - USC Viterbi | School of Engineering - USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Assistant Professor with focus in Cybersecurity job with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis | 372675 – The Chronicle of Higher…

Purdue School of Engineeringand Technology, IUPUI

Assistant Professor withfocus in Cybersecurity

The Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IndianaUniversityPurdue UniversityIndianapolis (IUPUI) invitesapplications for one tenuretrack position in the Department ofComputer Information and Graphics Technology. The start date isanticipated to be either January 1, 2022 or August 1, 2022.Applicants should have a strong record of research, showsignificant potential for establishing and sustaining an externallyfunded research program, be committed to teaching bothundergraduate and graduate courses, and mentoring M.S. and Ph.D.students.

We are particularly interested in applicants whose researchfocuses on Cybersecurity. Applicants whose research appliesCybersecurity to existing School strengths, such as IntelligentTransportation, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and other areas ofintelligent systems are strongly encouraged to apply. A doctoratein Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering,or a related discipline focusing on Cybersecurity is required bythe start date of the position.

The Department of Computer Information and Graphics Technologyoffers several degrees, including a B.S. in Cybersecurity, an M.S.in Cybersecurity and Trusted Systems, and also participates in theComputer Engineering Ph.D. program. The Purdue School ofEngineering and Technology at IUPUI has 7 academic departments withan extensive undergraduate and graduate degree portfolio, includingnumerous CAC, EAC, and ETAC of ABETaccredited B.S programs. TheSchool has over 3,000 students, including approximately 500graduate students pursuing either M.S. or Ph.D. programs.

As the states premier urban research institution, IUPUI iscommitted to being a welcoming campus community that reflects andenacts the values of diversity, equity and inclusion that informacademic excellence. We seek candidates who will not only enhanceour representational diversity but whose research, teaching, andcommunity engagement efforts contribute to diverse, equitable, andinclusive learning and working environments for our students,staff, and faculty. IUPUI condemns racism in all its forms and hastaken an antiracist stance that moves beyond mere statements tointerrogating its policies, procedures, and practices. We hope toidentify individuals who will assist in our mission to dismantleracism so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed atIUPUI.

Applications must include a letter of interest, curriculumvitae, and a summary of scholarship including research and teachinginterests, and contact information for at least threereferences.

Apply for this position at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/11332.Applications are welcome until the position is filled.

IUPUI is an EqualOpportunity/Affirmative Action educator and employer and affordsreasonable accommodations to persons with disabilities.

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Assistant Professor with focus in Cybersecurity job with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis | 372675 - The Chronicle of Higher...

How I Got Here: Dr. Kristin Austin helps women bridge the gap between higher ed and tech jobs – Technical.ly

Women make up just a quarter of computing roles and continue to be underrepresented in collegiate tech departments. Meanwhile, both rates are declining. An idea for reversing that trend: Bring them into a supportive community, sooner.

When West Chester-based Dr. KristinAustinentered Bloomsburg University in 1999, she knew she wanted to end up in higher education in some form. She came to admire the work college leadership professionals did with students, and knew she found her niche as she started to take on those roles herself, including as an admissions director and head of new student programs for different universities.

Today, Austin is the director of I.D.E.A.S thats inclusion, diversity, equity and access for Rewriting the Code (RTC), a nonprofit that aims to increase the representation of women in tech careers by intervening at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her online community currently consists of approximately 13,000 women majoring in college and graduate school programs, said the Ed.D.

K-12 has many STEM awareness-building groups and opportunities, but the disconnect happens once women get to college and actually declare a tech-related major, so that is where I wanted to invest my attention, Davis said.

During a recent AMA interview on Technical.lys Slack, Austin shared insight on her professional journey, women finding space in tech education, pay equity for women technologists and more. This interview was edited lightly for length and clarity.

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What are some reasons you find that women dont declare tech-related majors?

Generally speaking, women enroll in introductory tech classes at similar rate as do men, especially so at institutions where computer science courses are a general education requirement. Furthermore, women tend to perform better than men in those intro courses. However, when it comes to converting the women into full majors, many do not because they report experiences of exclusion, microaggressions, lack of representation, imposter syndrome and lack of support.

Their persistence in the major is not a matter of grades, but a matter of inclusion and belonging. Thats what I want to disrupt.

What are some misconceptions you find higher education professionals have most about making college a more inclusive experience for people of less represented backgrounds?

First, the college culture caters to socioeconomically secure, traditional aged, able-bodied, generational college students. If you dont fit those criteria, you face numerous hurdles that are seen and unseen. The pandemic is certainly changing all of that, and higher ed is being forced to really see student diversity for what it really is versus what is presented on brochures.

Colleges are learning (or, should be learning) new and innovative ways to accommodate and include what students really need. This is everything from offering more online learning options, to even restructuring how we measure and define learning. Getting rid of standardized entrance requirements, for example, is a huge win. We will see if that continues post-pandemic.

With your own firm, K.E.Advancement, part of your work is helping families get their kids to college. How significant is it for first-generation college students interested in tech to make that jump in 2021? I ask particularly because we hear of new bootcamps opening up in Philly and elsewhere so frequently.

When I meet with first-generation college students, one of my first questions is always, Have you thought about computer science? Many first-gen students default to more visible or obvious careers because they havent seen behind the scenes opportunities. For this reason, I bring it up. I lead with, Every job is a tech job, because it is! I help them to see how they utilize tech in their day-to-day lives, and how tech can offer seismic changes in their family, and the generations to come. I love seeing the light bulbs go off!

Bootcamps, as long as they are financially accessible, are amazing jump starts! I refer students to bootcamps to test the waters all the time! Its no secret that higher ed is not known for innovation. Industry is known for innovation, but not higher ed. The pandemic painfully revealed this. Look how hard higher ed struggled to pivot when we had to move online.

I would attribute this to the fact that higher ed never anticipated being challenged by YouTube, industry specific training and colleges, upskilling and all other self-taught modalities. I think higher ed thought they would always be like water: irreplaceable. Tech is proving that is not the case. There will always be a place for higher education, but I dont think that place will always look like what it has for the past so many years.

How does having fewer women in computer science majors affect the way in which women technologists are compensated for their work?

Freshly coming off of Black Womens Equal Pay Day, this is a great question. This is an area I am still researching. In general, women do not have pay parity with men, and the gap is even greater for women of color. That said, because tech is working toward including more women in the workplace, I am seeing a lot of incentives and pay transparency and equity in the latest hiring practices. So that is very positive!

The organization I work for, Rewriting the Code, just wrapped our Career Summit. We had over 50 companies all of Big Tech plus tons of startups all there drooling over the chance to hire the talent of RTC. There were so many jobs and internships that the students attending the summit could barely keep up with submitting their resume. That is a goodproblem to have!

I will add, though, that we are also teaching the women in RTC to look at all forms of compensation. We teach them to negotiate non-monetary benefits, too, because we want our women to know that pay is important, but so is frequent time off, work-life balance and the freedom to volunteer!

What advice do you have for women interested in pursuing or pivoting into tech careers?

My advice is to find community! Community exists in abundance online, but maybe not always in the physical. And thats OK! Join online social groups and spaces that are likeminded and safe. There, you can encourage, uplift, and find solidarity.

My organization exists entirely online and the women report feeling more connected to their RTC peers than their own fellow, in-person majors. So the big takeaway is to find community. It takes a village to raise a child, and a goal!

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You can join or just follow along with conversations like this one in the #ama channel on our public Slack. Coming up on Thursday, Aug. 26, Technical.ly reporters Holly QuinnandPaige Grosswill lead a discussion with women-in-tech meetup organizers from across the mid-Atlantic.

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How I Got Here: Dr. Kristin Austin helps women bridge the gap between higher ed and tech jobs - Technical.ly

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Become An Expert Developer With This Top-Rated Computer Science Bootcamp - IGN SOUTH EAST ASIA