Chair's Message

Abstract

The summer was a welcome break for all of us after a busy spring semester. As we begin the new academic year, we welcome our new members. It gives me great pleasure to announce the arrival of our newest faculty member, Bruce Maggs. A world renowned leader in parallel and distributed systems, Bruce moved here from Carnegie Mellon University. He also works as VP of Research and Development of Akamai Technologies. We are also delighted to have new students—both graduate and undergraduate. Congratulations to our recent graduates. We wish them all the best as they start a new phase in their lives. I am always proud to share the accomplishments of the members of the Department. Xiaobai Sun was promoted to the rank of Full Professor. A highly regarded computational scientist, she is well known for blending mathematical, algorithmic, and engineering issues. Kamesh Munagala received a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. Last year he received an NSF CAREER award for his work on stochastic optimization. Alex Hartemink was named a Bass Professor for his excellence in research and teaching. Currently on a sabbatical leave, Alex is spending a year teaching at a school in Kenya. Spring 2009 graduates Alex Keybl, John Pena, and Tiffany Yam received the Department’s Alex Vasilos Memorial Award for their excellence in academic achievement and undergraduate program support. As always, we were busy hosting several events during the spring and summer. Two new students, Sophia Cui and Peng Shi, joined our C-SURF program, a program designed to provide undergraduates with an intensive research experience. Building on the success of the last year’s workshop, Susan Rodger once again organized a workshop on Alice, educational software that provides innovative methods for teaching computer programming. Jeff Forbes organized the RoboCup Junior Regional Competition, in which eleven middleand high-school teams participated. The Department also hosted a vibrant summer internship program for undergraduates. The students conducted a wide variety of research in computational economics, computational biology, networking, and robotics. Others assisted with the HarambeeNet and Alice workshops. All agree it was a valuable and rewarding experience. Be sure to check out our website to learn the latest news about the Department and to be a part of our community. If you are in the RTP area, we hope you will stop by for a visit. We look forward to hearing from you.