Dani Jackson

Top from left: John Simmons, Blake Puryear, Justin Bertram and Chris McCroskey; bottom: Brandy Metzner Umdenstock, Barret Miller, Kanat Bektemirov and Bert Sanders.

The U of A Academy of Computer Science and Computer Engineering inducted eight new members at the annual New Member Induction Banquet held on April 14 at Mermaid's Seafood Restaurant. Inductees included Kanat Bektemirov, Justin Bertram, Chris McCroskey, Barret Miller, Blake Puryear, Bert Sanders, John Simmons and Brandy Metzner Umdenstock.

Bektemirov received his B.S. in computer science in 2015. After graduation, he co-founded a software startup to make finding elder care easier. Now, Bektemirov acts as the chief technology officer at SupplyPike.

Bertram received his B.S. in computer science and minor in mathematics in 2001. After graduation, he moved to Brazil to do mission work with university students before returning to Arkansas and joining Acxiom. Now, Bertram is working on the messaging engineering team at Red Hat where he serves as committer in the Apache Community, member of the ActiveMQ Project Management Committee and one of the lead developers of a message broker deployed across thousands of organizations.

McCroskey received his B.A. in political science in 1999. After graduation, he became director for Rockfish Interactive. McCroskey also co-founded Tweet Congress, a website that began as a grassroots effort to encourage politicians to tweet with constituents. McCroskey is now the founder and ideator at IdeaLoop.

Miller received his B.S. in computer science in 2008. During his 15 years at Tyson Foods, Miller has worked in technical and business leadership roles and has been fundamental in initiatives such as development of computer vision solutions powered by machine learning to improve production automation. Now, Miller is a leader in the application of emerging technologies to business and manufacturing.

Puryear received his B.S. in computer science in 2012, making him the youngest addition to the academy. After graduation, he joined Drip as director of product strategy. Now, Puryear is the director of product at Recharge, where he leads a team of product managers and product owners.

Sanders received his B.S. in computer systems engineering in 2001 and later received his M.S. in computer systems engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. After graduating, he took a job with Acxiom before moving to J.B. Hunt and then Walmart. Now, Sanders leads modernization and scaling efforts for Walmart's in-store pricing system, enabling no-touch digital shelf labelling and cloud-powered checkout.

Simmons received his B.S. in computer science in 2001. After graduation, he spent 20 years supporting mission critical distributed technology solutions at IBM, Toshiba and Bossa Nova Robotics. Now, Simmons works as InOrbit's head of product, where he leverages his extensive experience with autonomous mobile robots.

Umdenstock received her B.S. in computer engineering in 2003 with a minor in mathematics. After graduation, she began working as an intern at Walmart, where she began to move up the ranks. After her success as a software and systems engineer, Umdenstock moved into leadership positions. Now, she works as the chief of staff for the Developer Platforms organization within Walmart Global Tech.

The academy is making strides toward diversifying its members. The new members show great promise for the future of the academy. Inductees Bektemirov, Bertram and Umdenstock attended the business meeting the following morning, providing excellent insight to the board. The academy looks forward to improving over the next year with the great additions they have made to membership.

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U of A Academy of Computer Science and Computer Engineering ... - University of Arkansas Newswire

Education is increasingly becoming technology driven. The Osage Community School District is ahead of the curve in its focus on this other form of literacy.

From left to right, Marley Hannon, Ava Ketelsen and Hayden Huisman use technology at Lincoln Elementary School.

Computer science is one aspect of Osages efforts. Recently, its determination was honored, when Lincoln Elementary School received a CS100 School award for its commitment to providing exceptional computer science education to its students.

Lincoln was one of only two schools in Iowa to receive the national recognition.

To be eligible for the CS100 School award, Lincoln had to meet minimum requirements of teaching 10 hours a year of computer science. According to Osage media specialist and technology instructional coach Kelley Molitor, the school at every grade level spends over two hours a week coding writing computer programs.

We qualified very easily for it, Molitor said, adding she was very confident in Osages application. We do a lot of coding throughout the day. Its not a standalone here. Its infused throughout the grade levels. Coding happens during literacy, math, science and social studies.

People are also reading

As John Pearce, executive director of the awarding body CSisElementary believes, computer science is a literacy.

Molitor is more emphatic, stating that what is taught in Osage affects all of Mitchell County, as students eventually join the workforce and bring their skills to bear. Even agriculture is now driven by computer science. Computer science helps feed the world. The medical field is immersed in it, and what the students learn today could save lives tomorrow.

Anyone who uses a cell phone is part of the movement.

One of the instructors conveying this knowledge and these skills is Lincoln Elementary School teacher Lori Randall. It is no longer science fiction when robots assist the students in their classrooms.

Each grade level has a different device that they master, Randall said. Its sequential from kindergarten through grade four in our building.

By the time these students reach middle school, they are experts. Randall believes Lincolns CS100 School award was well deserved. She sees her students coding and guiding robots through obstacle courses every day.

We were really proud to have won that, because everyone is part of this journey, Randall said. Its not just certain teachers. All of us are working together. We go above and beyond in this area. Youre starting young with the problem solving, the computational thinking, the creativity, the communication and the collaboration. And then we keep building on it every year.

These kids have had computers and technology in their hands since they were born, Molitor said.

STEAM

Another aspect of Osages emphasis on technology was the STEAM Festival held last month. Exhibits filled the gyms and classrooms of the middle school and high school. STEAM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Most of the elementary teachers were involved in the event. For an evening, their students became instructors.

Just inside the front door, a state-of-the-art robot dog performed tricks for kids.

Molitor helped organize the event, which was sprawling. People came from other school districts. There were drones, star labs and almost every technology conceivable. Participants could peer into microscopes and hammer nails. It was a combination of technology brought into the school from outside sources, as well as a showcase of the students and the schools own technological efforts.

We have a lot of support in the community as well as around the area, Molitor said, as Iowa State University and the U.S. Army were represented, along with local businesses, the police department and the hospital.

Going low tech at the STEAM festival.

Still, the star of the show might have been the robot dog, which is an over-simplified way to describe the device. It walks on four legs with the sophistication of an animal.

Molitor envisions how that technology could translate to cyber security in a school. The robot animal could not only teach programming, but cameras could be installed and it could patrol the halls as a guard dog. The applications are endless. It is the sort of creature that ends up on Mars.

While a robot as a hall monitor is a few years out, Molitor would like one day for the school to be able to afford this sophisticated device.

The handler of the robot dog visited administration at Osage last summer. The robot uses what is called C++ programing, which is a high-level language.

Our high school graduates who are in college now have told us we need to keep getting other languages in the high school, Molitor said of programming. So our students can learn more before they get to college. The cool thing about this robot dog is that it could be coded in C++.

Realism in movement will soon give way to realism in thought, to what is known as artificial intelligence.

With AI, that stuffs going to start thinking, Molitor said. Even that robot dog would have AI, so it would recognize people. If we took the whole school, and put every photo into the dogs memory, then it would identify someone who was not supposed to be there.

Kelley (Molitor) is great at inspiring and encouraging people, Randall said, as Molitor is a driving force in recommending technology and writing grants to afford it. To her, it is well worth the money, whether it is simple coding or a robot.

We wouldnt be here without her, said Lincoln Elementary School instructional coach Deb Huftalin. She knew what was coming and got us started eight years ago.

The STEAM festival highlighted not only what Osage could do, but how it could expand with more resources.

Job simulator

Another technological advancement is being shared between Osage and the St. Ansgar Community School District. It is a job simulator, which was featured at the STEAM festival. It will be operated out of the industrial technology program.

It was a year in the making with the STEM BEST grant and other monies we could generate, Molitor said, as local businesses helped with the financing.

While some students learn best by the book, there are others who thrive outside the classroom setting, which is not unusual in a farming community, where skills are learned through practice.

Occasionally, it will help students know what they dont want to do.

The Osage and St. Ansgar Community High School job simulator.

We have a lot of kids who are hands-on learners, Molitor said. Many businesses need kids that have the skills to do the jobs they need. The businesses are able to use the job simulator for training. Theyre very hopeful theyll get employees out of it.

One goal is to keep students local after they graduate. Another of Molitors goals is to get more girls interested in hands-on occupations.

And as Molitor notes, it is better to fail on the job simulator than on an expensive piece of equipment.

I think its a unique opportunity, Molitor said. I dont know of any other high school in the state that has this. As our kids learn more, we have to keep pushing them and providing what they need.

And what they need is different among different students.

Our students are very excited about learning and infusing it into their reading, Randall said of the crossover between technology and all subjects. Its another opportunity for them to learn in a different way, because all of them are different kinds of learners.

Big schools

While some students are more talented than others, Randall sees technology as leveling the playing field. Because they all have to adapt to what we call being a risk taker it may be wrong, but you can go back and debug and work on it to get it right. Theyre not afraid of failure. They learn from it.

Sometimes its the kids you dont expect, Huftalin said. Theyre not always your high flyers.

Sometimes its the kids who are more quiet and reserved, Randall said.

Molitor also speaks of digital citizenship and online safety.

Its one of the more dangerous times in the world because of online issues, Molitor said. How do you keep yourself safe?

Other much larger schools have praised Osages program. At a conference the previous week, the superintendent of the school system in Bettendorf approached Huftalin with a heap of praise.

She said, We dont do any this this is amazing, Huftalin explained. We take it for granted that weve been incorporating it for almost eight years.

We get calls all the time, Molitor said. It reinforces that were doing the right things.

School systems from across Iowa come to Osage to study its commitment to technology, to learn and then implement Osages system into their own schools. It is a testament to the vision of Osages teachers.

They come to see what were doing at each grade level, said Randall. They see the progression, how were incorporating computer science into our curriculum.

According to Huftalin, between 80-90% of schools have a standalone teacher where students go to learn about computer science. In Osage, they incorporate those lessons into the daily curriculum, which requires a commitment from teachers at all grade levels.

To infuse it is so much more successful, Molitor said, noting that Osage moved from the standalone model early on. It engages kids more.

Kids are growing up in a technology immersive world. If we dont teach them how to use it responsibly, to become creators instead of just consumers, then were not giving them the tools they need to be successful after high school.

Jason W. Selby is the community editor for the Mitchell Country Press News. He can be reached at 515-971-6217, or by email at jason.selby@globegazette.com.

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Osage embraces computer science and technology - Globe Gazette

Artists and scientists in todays world often exist in their own disciplinary silos. But the Laboratory Art in Practice Bass Connections team hopes to rewrite this narrative, by engaging Duke students from a range of disciplines in a 2-semester series of courses designed to join the artist studio, the humanities seminar room, and the science lab bench. Their work culminated in re:process an exhibition of student artwork on Friday, April 28, in the lobby of the French Family Science Center. Rather than science simply engaging artistic practice for the sake of science, or vice versa, the purpose of these projects was to offer an alternate reality where art and science meet as equals.

Liuren Yin, a junior double-majoring in Computer Science and Visual and Media Studies, developed an art project to focus on the experience of prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Individuals with this condition are unable to tell two distinct faces apart, including their own, often relying on body language, clothing, and the sound of a persons voice to determine the identity of a person. Using her experience in computer science, she developed an algorithm that inputs distinct faces and outputs the way that these faces are perceived by someone who has prosopagnosia.

Next to the computer and screen flashing between indistinguishable faces, shes propped up a mirror for passers-by to look at themselves and contemplate the questions that inspired her to create this piece. Yin says that as she learned about prosopagnosia, where every face looks the same, she found herself wondering, how am I different from a person that looks like me? Interrogating the link between our physical appearance and our identity is at the root of Yins piece. Especially in an era where much of our identity exists online and appearance can be curated any way one wants, Yin considers this artistic piece especially timely. She writes in her program note that my exposure to technologies such as artificial intelligence, generative algorithms, and augmented reality makes me think about the combination and conflict between human identity and these futuristic concepts.

Eliza Henne, a junior majoring in Art History with a concentration in Museum Theory and Practice, focused more on the biological world in her project, which used a lavender plant in different forms to ask questions like what is truthful, and what do we consider real? By displaying a live plant, an illustration of a plant, and pressings from a plant, she invites viewers to consider how every rendition of a commonly used model organism in scientific experiments omits some information about the reality of the organism.

For example, lavender pressings have materiality, but theres no scent or dimension to the plant. A detailed illustration is able to capture even the way light illuminates the thin veins of the leaf, but is merely an illustration of a live being. The plant itself, which is conventionally real, can only further be seen in this sort of illustrative detail under a microscope or in a diagram.

In walking through the lobby of FFSC, where these projects and more are displayed, youre surrounded by conventionally scientific materials, like circuit boards, wires, and petri dishes, which, in an unusual turn of events are being used for seemingly unscientific endeavors. These endeavors illustrating the range of human emotion, showcasing behavioral patterns like overconsumption, or demonstrating the imperfection inherent to life might at first glance feel more appropriate in an art museum or a performing arts stage.

But the students and faculty involved in this exhibition see that as the point. Maybe it isnt so unnatural to build a bridge between the arts and the sciences maybe, they are simply two sides of the same coin.

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When Art and Science Meet as Equals - Research Blog - Duke University

US universities

Dennis Maliq Barnes of New Orleans announces he will attend Cornell University this fall to study computer science

The 16-year-old American high schooler who set what is believed to be a US record after collecting more than $10m in college scholarship offers is bound for the Ivy League.

Dennis Maliq Barnes announced on Friday that he plans to enroll at Cornell University for the fall semester to study computer science after his 24 May graduation from New Orleanss International high school. The Ithaca, New York, university only accepts 9% of applicants, and just 7% of its 15,000 or so students are Black like Barnes, according to the US News & World Report.

Today is an exciting day for me and my family, read a statement from Barnes that also thanked his family, his high school community and a local university where he has already accumulated 27 college credits. I look forward to working with Cornell over the course of my undergraduate education.

Barnes gained admission into nearly 190 universities and colleges across the US, with about 150 of them offering him a total of more than $10m in scholarship offers.

Officials at International high maintain that Barnes has attracted more offered scholarship money than any incoming college freshman ever in US history.

In 2019, when she graduated from Early College academy in Lafayette, Louisiana, Normandie Cormier received just under $9.5m in scholarship offers from about 140 schools and sought recognition from Guinness World Records.

Guinness has said it doesnt keep track of such a record. Cormier has said Guinness ultimately told her that it did not find anyone else in the US with more offered college scholarship money than her, but the organization couldnt grant record-holder status to her because of differences with higher education systems elsewhere in the world.

Coincidentally, Cormier chose to attend Xavier University in New Orleans which is about three miles (4.8km) from Barness school and still lives in the city.

Known best to his friends by his middle name Maliq, Barnes is a National Honor Society member whose fluency in Spanish has earned him both a diploma from Spains educational, cultural and sports ministry as well as an award from the countrys honorary consul in New Orleans.

He competed on the basketball and track-and-field teams at his school, which promoted him out of his sophomore and junior years as he maintained an unusually high cumulative grade point average of about 4.98.

Though he is younger than the typical US high school senior, Barnes has already started accumulating college credits through a dual enrollment program offered by Southern University at New Orleans.

Barnes has said he hopes the national headlines his record has drawn will inspire his peers to surpass academic expectations that others set upon them. He has also said he wants prospective college scholars to realize how much academic aid is out there, especially as the US student debt crisis has left more than 45 million Americans owing a collective $1.7tn.

Adierah Berger, the head of International high, said in a statement: Dennis is already a bright star and I know his star will shine even brighter when he sets foot on Cornells campus.

A statement from Cornell congratulated Barnes on his acceptance to the university, saying he, his fellow incoming students and their families had already accomplished much to reach this exciting moment in their educational journeys.

We are excited to welcome this incredible group of future leaders to our campus community in just a few months, Cornells statement said.

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High schooler who won record $10m in scholarship offers heads to Ivy League - The Guardian US

ByHub staff report

Three Johns Hopkins University researchersneuroscientist Amy Bastian, biomedical engineer Jennifer Elisseeff, and astrophysicist and computer scientist Alex Szalayhave been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Image caption: Amy Bastian, Jennifer Elisseeff, and Alex Szalay

Bastian, Elisseeff, and Szalay are among 120 members and 23 international members elected this year, the academy announced Tuesday. With the new elections, the total number of active academy members grows to 2,565 and the total number of international membersnonvoting members with citizenship outside the U.S.grows to 526. A full list of new members elected in 2023 can be found on the National Academy of Sciences website.

Bastian combines her expertise in neuroscience and physical therapy to study human movement. Specifically, she has a focus on the effects of disease and damage to the central nervous system on movement in adults and children, as well as how people learn new patterns of movement. Bastian is the chief scientific officer and director of the Center for Movement Studies at the Kennedy Krieger Institute; she is also professor of neuroscience, neurology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She joined Johns Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger in 2001 from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Elisseef specializes in regenerative medicine, especially using the body's own immune system as an avenue for tissue repair and regeneration. She directs the Translational Tissue Engineering Center, a joint venture between the Wilmer Eye Institute and the university's Department of Biomedical Engineering, and is a professor of biomedical engineering, ophthalmology, materials science and engineering, and chemical and biomolecular engineering. Elisseeff joined Hopkins in 2001 after completing a fellowship at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. She was previously elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she received the prestigious NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2019.

Szalay is an international leader in astronomy, cosmology, the science of big data, and dataintensive computing who has significantly expanded our understanding of the structure formation and nature of dark matter in the universe. He has also led the development of computer architectures that are creating a new paradigm of data-intensive science across multiple fields, including astronomy, radiation oncology, and genomics. Szalay is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor with appointments in JHU's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering, and he directs the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science. He joined Johns Hopkins in 1989 from Etvs University in Hungary and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, andwith the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicineprovides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

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Three Johns Hopkins researchers elected to National Academy of ... - The Hub at Johns Hopkins