Siebel Center Grand Opening

“It was like a light going off in my head,”said Pooja (PJ) Mathur, freshman incomputer science. Her reaction came inresponse to a ChicTech presentation ather high school last year by a group offemale students from the department.

“My friend was making fun of me,saying it was like the mothership callingme home,” continued Mathur. “I seemedso much like them — I totally fit in withthem and this seemed like something Iwould be interested in.”

ChicTech is a traveling road show for girls who attendIllinois high schools. In response to low and fallingnumbers of women opting to pursue a career in computerscience, the department’s female students have taken tothe street in a grassroots effort generate interest in thefield. Treating high school girls across the state to pizzaluncheons, groups of CS volunteers explain and demystifythe burgeoning field. They give the girls a glimpse of lifeas a student and explore the exciting and challengingcareer options open to graduates. As with PJ Mathur,many of the new ideas that are presented resonate withthe younger girls, sparking their interest and moving themtoward further exploration.

Building communities with $1 million NSF grant

Fall2 0 0 4

Alumni News

Photo by Mary E. Hosier

continued on p. 15

continued on p. 2

“Computer science contributions have changed the worldin many ways,” Tom Siebel said at the dedication of thebuilding bearing his name. “People are healthier andliving longer. There are more jobs and, through computerscience, we are creating beauty, order, peace, andprosperity.”

After a year of planning and two years of construction,the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science wasofficially opened on April 30, 2004. Three days of eventswere held to bring together department, campus, local,alumni, and industrial communities to share in thecelebration.

The Cisco Systems Distinguished Women in ComputerScience Symposium launched the festivities. PanelistsLynn Reedy (BS ‘77 Math & CS), Senior Vice President,eBay, Inc.; Noreen Iles (BS ‘83), Vice President, Sears,

Roebuck and Company; Cynthia Samuelson, SeniorFellow, LMI; Shaula Alexander Yemini, President andCEO, System Management Art; and CS professorMarianne Winslett shared stories from their academic andbusiness backgrounds, and spoke for the need fordiversity in both of these areas.

Alumni gathered for a breakfast meeting with theExecutive Advisory Council. Tom Siebel (MS ’85), MarcSnir, Siebel Center architect Peter Bohlin, and CS systemsmanager Chuck Thompson (BS ‘91, MCS ‘01) discussedthe structure from each of their perspectives.

People streamed through the center for the open house,which included research laboratory tours anddemonstrations, student projects from their classes andengineering open house, and a digital art exhibit.

Rising to thechallenge

2 ALUMNI NEWS

Roy Campbell wasnamed the first Sohaiband Sara AbbasiProfessor in ComputerScience in recognition ofhis accomplishments inresearch and teaching.

Campbell came to the departmentin 1976. Since that time he has had asignificant influence on the areas ofoperating systems and security. Hedefined and implemented Path Pascalprogramming language for a varietyof systems incorporating concurrencyand synchronization. He designedChoices, one of the first object-oriented operating systems, showinghow object orientation can be used tocustomize an operating system todifferent platforms and applicationrequirements.

His current work on the Gaiasystem supports pervasive/contextaware/ubiquitous applications thatcan adapt themselves to the availabledistributed resources in a newlocation and can be migrated withmobile users and groups of users.

He has been engaged in numerouscross-campus initiatives, and State ofIllinois activities on cybersecurity,and is the driving force behind thecreation of a new curriculum ininformation assurance. He hasadvised over 32 PhD students and 110MS students, many of whom are inpositions of influence in academia orindustry.

Sohaib Abbasi, BS ‘78, MS ‘80, andhis wife, Sara, established the Sohaiband Sara Abbasi Professorship toenable the department to maintain itsstature as one of the nation’s premierdepartments and give students theopportunity to learn from a world-renown computer scientist andeducator. They have also endowedthe Sohaib and Sara AbbasiFellowship.

Sohaib Abbasi is the president andchief executive officer of InformaticaCorporation, a leading provider ofdata integration software. He hadbeen with Oracle Corporation for 22years beginning in 1982.

Campbell namedAbbasi Professor

The Illinois Engineering Council (IEC)has selected the Thomas M. SiebelCenter for Computer Science as one oftheir 2004 Outstanding EngineeringAchievement award winners. Eachyear the IEC, which represents over20 engineering societies throughoutthe state, recognizes outstandingengineering projects completed inIllinois, capturing the innovative anddynamic spirit of the profession, anddemonstrating interdisciplinaryengineering accomplishment andcreativity.

The state-of-the-art building wasdesigned by Peter Bohlin of theaward-winning architectural firmBohlin, Cywinski, and Jackson,Pittsburgh, Penn. The aestheticallypleasing environment combines hightech with beauty, warmth, and light.The architect of record was LZTAssociates, Inc., Peoria, Ill.

Siebel Center designwins IEC award

In This IssueAlumni

New alumni director 5News 5Profile: Zach Mided 4

Ties with industry 7

Department

Awards 10Campbell—Abbasi Prof. 2Online certificate 16Faculty news 12-13Research— new grants 14 Bee genome database 14Siebel Center opening 7-8Student news 10-11

The Alumni News is publishedtwice a year. All ideas expressedin the Alumni News are those ofthe authors or editors and do notnecessarily reflect the officialposition of the alumni or theDepartment of Computer Science.

Editor: Kathleen ZanottiContributors: Deborah Israel andTammy Nicastro

Send address changes orsubmissions to:

Editor, Alumni NewsDept. of Computer Science201 N. Goodwin AvenueUrbana, IL 61801

email: alumni@cs.uiuc.eduFax: (217) 333-3501www.cs uiuc.edu

Printed on recycled paper withsoy ink.

The University of Illinois is anequal opportunity and affirmativeaction institution.

Siebel opening continued from p. 1

The BFG Competition broughtmany of the community memberstogether in a student-designedimmersive game. The lower level ofSiebel Center was transformed into anarcheological dig site of a million-year-old intelligent building that wasnot happy with the team’s presence.Spectators could watch the playerswho were tracked using a state-of-the-art RFID system at the dig site, orfrom the command center where theaction was controlled, or on theatrium wall screen that displayedavatars of the players.

The audience had much todeliberate after listening to the finalpanel discussion on computers,society, and the future. Panelistsincluded John Unsworth, dean of theGraduate School of Library andInformation Science; Michael Ross,director of Krannert Center for thePerforming Arts; Timothy Bresnahan,professor of economics at StanfordUniversity; and Daniel Reed, formerCS department head and now directorof the Institute for RenaissanceComputing at UNC.

Roy Campbell

Fall 2004 3

This year has been verybusy for our department.We moved into our newbuilding in early springand had our officialopening ceremony in lateApril. The new building isall that we expected it tobe: it is one of the mostelegant buildings on ourcampus; it has many airy

and well-lighted public spaces, numerouspleasant meeting spaces and seminar rooms, andwell-equipped classes and labs. It even has anespresso bar, a facility all faculty thought to beessential to their productivity.… In short, it isboth esthetic and functional — a rarecombination. We are thankful to Tom Siebel forthe huge improvement in our quality of life thathis contribution enabled.

Of course, a new building is for many years anongoing project. The building has very advancedtechnology: building automation, networking,and audio-video. Most of it works — no meanachievement for our technology team. But wewant to do more: we want our building to be aliving lab, where the technology in the buildingis used by students and faculty to perform theirresearch and where the department is the firstuser of the fruits of this advanced research.

This is starting to happen: our networkingresearch group is gathering data on traffic in thecenter for use in its research; the educationtechnology group is developing technology thatis used in our classrooms; the human-computerinteraction group is working on technologies thatwill deployed in our public areas.… We areslowly learning how to best use our newenvironment, and enjoy the learning.

We had an outstanding recruiting season lastspring: ten new faculty have accepted positionsin the department and seven of them havealready come. I am particularly happy with ournew senior hires: Prof. David Forsyth, who joinsus from Berkeley, and Prof. Carl Gunter, whomoves from the University of Pennsylvania. The

department continues to grow in new areas(security, HCI, formal methods, and softwareengineering…).

The new faculty are bringing to the departmenta new level of excitement and vibrancy and ahealthy appetite for change; the quality of theirwork is outstanding. I think that the hiring overthe last few years has laid a solid foundation forthe continued excellence of CS at UIUC in thecoming decades.

I would like to end by discussing a challengethat our profession is facing these days: the pressis rife with news about unemployment in IT, dueto slower growth and increased outsourcing.Some of you have experienced this in person.Many CS departments have seen a decrease inenrollments that is attributed to reduced employ-ment outlooks as well as to the increasingdifficulties that foreign students face in coming tothe U.S. We have seen a decrease in the number ofapplicants but, as in other selective programs, thishas not translated into a decrease in the numberof students: we still have a sufficiently large poolof well-qualified applicants.

On the other hand, the changes raise twoimportant questions about our educationprograms:

• First, how do we prepare our students tocompete in the different world of tomorrow?Should we shift the balance between core CSfoundation, practical skills in software design andimplementation, broader personal skills, andfoundations in other disciplines (business,application areas, etc.)? How do we prepare ourstudents to thrive in a world where business isinternational?

• Second, how can we be more relevant to ouralumni when they consider career changes? Canwe help with short courses, education material,people networking opportunities, etc.?

I shall be glad to hear any suggestions orinsights that you might have on these issues;please do not hesitate to communicate with me, orwith our new alumni director, Tammy Nicastro(see p. 5).

From the Corner Office

- Marc Snir

4 ALUMNI NEWS

As Vice President of Engineering and Operation atMaxager Technology in San Rafael, Calif., Zach Mided, BS’92, not only draws upon his knowledge from hiscomputer science degree but also his early experiencedesigning software applications to streamline his family’sproduce business in the Chicago suburbs. In 1996 Zachjoined Maxager, an enterprise software company that sellsprofit optimization solutions. He is currently responsiblefor product design and development worldwide, andoversees all technical operations in the company.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Zach in SanRafael. We discussed his career and how his degree withits emphasis on theoretical coursework helped himdevelop strong critical thinking skills needed in today’sbusiness world. To balance the theory courses, he took thesenior project sequence, which is designed for students toanalyze a real-world problem, select a suitable solution,and implement that solution.

Zach’s group executed a small computer system for acompany in Champaign. He feels this was an excellentbusiness experience to prepare him for his first job as asoftware consultant with Chicago-based LanteCorporation. He helped manage, design, and developcustom software for use in a variety of industriesincluding market research and analysis, advertising, andhealthcare.

So what about his experience with the family’s businessbefore he arrived at the University of Illinois?

“My family’s business is the wholesale producebusiness. They buy fruits and vegetables from farmers andthen sell them to businesses that supply grocery stores andrestaurants. The computer system I developed handleseverything for the company, such as shipping andreceiving, sales, pricing, invoicing, accounts payable, andaccounts receivable,” replied Zach.

“A key feature of the application is that it could be usedby people who had never used a computer before. One ofthese users was my grandfather, who was in is seventiesand had never made it past the sixth grade let alone used acomputer. So, our main goal was to make the system‘Grandpa-proof’ or ‘Grandpa-friendly,’ depending onyour point-of-view,” added Zach.

One could say this high school project for his family’sbusiness was the beginning to his career in enterprisesoftware. When asked what he finds most rewardingabout his duties at Maxager, Zach responded, “I really

love being part of a small group of people working hardtoward a common goal. I like having stock options andfeeling like it is partially ‘my company’ as opposed tobeing ‘the company I work for’.”

“I enjoy being in a position where I can stronglyinfluence my company. Because we are small I have beenable to participate in almost all aspects of the businessincluding management, software design, R&D, sales,marketing, customer support, and IT. My favorite jobresponsibility is designing the software. I have alwaysbeen interested in business and technology. I love beinggiven a ’soft’ business problem and try to figure out thebest way to address that problem with software,” saidZach.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Zach recently hascompleted a course at Stanford on genetic programming(GP), which has piqued his interest. Again, when youtrace the origin of this interest, the answer lies in hisfamily.

“A few years ago, my father gave me a textbook calledGenetic Programming by John Koza. The ideas in the bookwere really interesting to me and so I decided to take agraduate course with Professor Koza at Stanford to learnmore about them and get some hands-on experience. Mycurrent job does involve using some AI technologies,though we are not currently using GP, but intend toexplore that more in the future,” said Zach.

“One of the big challenges with GP is that the resultsare very dependent on how the technique is applied toyour problem, and it can often be very difficult to do thisin an efficient way. The other difficultly with GP is that itoften requires a very large amount of processing power,which can be too much for today’s computers. I feel thatGP needs to mature a bit before it can be a strongercontender, relative to other AI techniques, for real-worldbusiness applications. At that point, I may be able toinclude GP more in my everyday job,” said Zach.

With all of the demands of his job, Zach still finds timefor recreation. As a former Illini Rugby player, he knowsall too well the danger associated with the sport. So he hasmoved on to a less painful game—amateur soccer. He alsohas become involved with meditation and Buddhism andis a member at the San Francisco Zen Center.

Zach stays connected to the department as a member ofour Executive Advisory Council. He has provided a lot ofinput on our Industrial Affiliates initiative as well assuggestions on how to better accommodate our distantcouncil members so that they can play more of a role inour meetings. Zach will be returning to campus thisacademic year to participate in our new Engineer inResidence program (see p. 7).

The most exciting news of all for this CS alumnus is theexpansion of his own family. He and his wife, Liz Co, aformer aeronautical scientist who works as a consultant inweb design, their first child, a boy, in November.

by Tammy Nicastro

1-on-1: Mided maximizes opportunities

“It has been great to be partof this company since thebeginning. I have been ableto see all of the ups anddowns, and how our businessand the market have changedover the years. It has been agreat learning experience.”Zach Mided

Fall 2004 5

Nicastro namedalumni director2000s

Kevin Gibbs, MS ’03, marriedJennifer Funk in January 2004 inAuburn, Ill. He is employed withXetron Communication Solutions inCincinnati, Ohio.

Derek Taubert, MCS ‘02, wasawarded his first patent forimproving network compatibility. Hehas been a software engineer at CiscoSystems in San Jose, Calif., since 1996.He is currently working for RedbackNetworks. In his free time he isnumber 18 on the Redback Spiders icehockey team.

Matthew Hurlbut, BS ’00, andJennifer Nelson were married in Julyin Glenn Elyn, Ill. He is employed byDiamondCluster International inChicago as an IT managementconsultant.

1990sDavid Hoag, BS ‘91, was appointed

director of clearing solution architec-ture for the Chicago MercantileExchange. He is responsible fordeveloping the architecturalstandards for all clearing technology.

1980sThomas J. Keating, BS ‘88, was

named an associate in Husch &Eppenberger in Kansas City, Mo. Hispractice is in the areas of computersoftware, biotechnology, and themechanical arts. He holds a lawdegree and PhD in cell biology.

Constantine Polychronopoulos,PhD ‘86, is founder and CTO ofBytemobile, which offers a range ofoptimization solutions that improvethe reliability, scalability, andmanageability of data networksowned by mobile network operators,ISPs, and enterprises worldwide

Thomas M. Siebel, MS ’85, wasawarded the University of IllinoisBoard of Trustees’ DistinguishedService Medallion their fall meeting.The award was created to recognizeindividuals for extraordinary serviceto the university.

Doug MacGregor, MS ‘80, is thenew president of the ownershipgroup of the Arena Football League’s

Austin Wranglers. MacGregor hadbeen a partner in Eyes of TexasPartners LLC, a venture capital groupthat invests in early-stage technologycompanies.

1970sRay Ozzie, BS ‘79, was elected to

the National Academy of Engineeringfor his conception and developmentof online collaboration products,including Lotus Notes.

Sohaib Abbasi, BS ‘78 and MS ‘80,was named president and CEO ofInformatica Corp., Redwood City,Calif. Informatica Corp. is a leader indata integration software. He hadbeen with Oracle Corporation for 22years beginning in 1982.

Ronald Danielson, PhD ‘75, is CIOand associate professor of computerengineering at Santa Clara Universityin Calif.

Mary Jane Irwin, MS ‘75 and PhD‘77, was presented with the Marie R.Pistilli Women in EDA AchievementAward to recognize her support ofwomen in the EDA industry.

Barry Greenstein, BS ‘75, has wontwo major poker tournaments in lessthan a year, with winnings of morethan $1 million each. This modern-day Robin Hood donates all of histournament money to charities suchas Children, Inc.

Alumni news

ComputerSciencewelcomesTammyNicastro as itsnew Asso-ciateDirector ofAlumniRelations andDevelopment.

For the past 10 years she has workedin the fields of medicine and biomed-ical research. Most recently she wasan account manager with Carl Zeiss,Inc., in biomedical research.

Nicastro, BS ’95 in animal science,began her position at the end ofAugust and has been on the roadvisiting alumni ever since.

“I would like to meet with as manyalumni as possible so that I canupdate them on the activities of thedepartment and learn about theirwork,” said Nicastro. “Through thesemeetings I hope to create opportun-ities for our alumni to re-engage withCS through collaborations, recruitingnew students, mentoring, or makingasset contributions. I would also liketo build a larger base of alumni whocontribute to the annual fund (seep. 6). Finally, I am working towardincreasing our endowed professorand chair positions, scholarships, andfellowships so that CS will be morecompetitive with other top-tierprograms in recruiting faculty andstudents.

“When talking with alumni I ammost impressed by the effect theirwork is having on society,” continuedNicastro. “They represent a widerange of fields of work, but all ofthem share a commonality — they allexpress the same level of excellencethat is expected of the CS studentswho are admitted to and graduatefrom Illinois.”

Deb Israel was named Coordinatorof External Relations and Develop-ment. She is focused on makingconnections with industry (see p. 7)and on student projects.

Jeffrey Paul Blahut, age 34,died June 13, 2004, at Champaign.He was a student in the depart-ment. Memorials may be made aCS scholarship fund in his name.

Charles Richard Boyle, age 41,passed away June 21, 2004, inSeattle, Wash. He was a vicepresident of an informationtechnology firm.

Yahiko Kambayashi, age 60,passed away February 6, 2004. Hewas a database research pioneer.While in the department in theearly 1970s as a visiting researchassociate, he developed a logicdesign method called the trans-duction method, which is used bylogic design software vendors.

In Memoriam

Tammy Nicastro

6 ALUMNI NEWS

Your dollars at workThere are very few people who canafford to endow an entire scholar-ship or fellowship with personalfunds. However, when we combinethe small contributions made byour alumni over the past year, itadds up to more than $36,000.

You probably didn’t realize that your donation to theannual fund can provide:

• funding for student travel to professionalconferences to present their research and gain newperspectives

• scholarships and tuition waivers• awards to recognize contributions made by the

department’s outstanding staff

Our annual fund is havinga positive effect on ourprograms, but there is still anincredible amount ofpotential for growth.

The Computer Sciencedepartment has one of thelowest alumni participation

rates for annual giving of any department in theCollege of Engineering. Of the 5,761 engineering and3,039 LAS alumni, only 116 (1%) contributed last year; a

typical gift was between $50and $500. Imagine the impactour annual fund could have if10% our alumni made acontribution.

With state funding decreasing, we will bedepending more and more on our alumni and friendsfor support to continue these programs and to createnew programs that will meet the changing needs ofour department.

A named endowmentcan be established forgifts greater than $10,000to help support anumber of specialprograms and activities.

Wherever you chooseto direct your philanthropy, you should check to seewhether your employer will increase your giftthrough a corporate matching gift program.

For more information on making a contribution tothe department, contact Tammy Nicastro atalumni@cs.uiuc.edu.

Please make your check payable to UIF/CSDepartment.Return form and your check to:

University of Illinois FoundationP.O. Box 3249Champaign, IL 61826-9916

$1,000 $500 $100 Other

The gift is: unrestricted student scholarships Innovation Fund Other

I am enclosing my employer’s matching gift form. Company name will match my gift with $ .

I authorize the U of I Foundation to collect my gift in the amount above through: Visa MasterCard Amex Discover

Card no. Expiration date Signature

Name

Home address

City State Zip

Yes, I want to help computer science!

Fall 2004 7

Through the years, the departmenthas established long-term relation-ships with leading companiesthroughout the world. Generouscontributions have been made eitherby the company directly or throughthe help of an alum within thecompany. These have been in theform of equipment, faculty researchfunding, and student scholarshipsand fellowships. Three programshave been developed that will helpstrengthen the connections among CS,industry, and our alumni.

Industrial AffiliatesThe IDCSA program was designed tofoster and encourage the ties betweenthe department and industry that area natural outgrowth of the depart-ment’s extensive research programand its outstanding student body, themajority of whom will be hired byindustry. Members can attend theannual affiliates conference, whichfeatures lectures and panels of expertsin industry and the department, areverse job fair, and tours anddemonstrations of research labs.

Affiliates will also have access tostudent recruitment events, graduatestudents, and faculty consultants,publications resulting from non-proprietary research, and conferenceand workshop schedules. Memberswill also have priority in placing aresearch scientist or engineer to workon-site in the department and accessto available facilities and equipmenton cost-reimbursement basis.

Corporate DaysThe Corporate Days programprovides organizations with a highlevel of exposure to our faculty,researchers, and students. It involvesa two-day, high-profile visit to thedepartment by a small team ofcorporate representatives and

New programs strengthen tieswith industry and alumni

includes opportunities to recruit ourstudents; learn about our research,faculty, and facilities; deliver guestlectures and technical talks in ourclasses and to our student organiza-tions; and dine with targeted groups.

The program centers on apresentation by a senior corporateexecutive as part of our DistinguishedEntrepreneur Lecture Series. Thisseries is a vehicle that keeps ourdepartment abreast of the mostimportant issues and obstacles facedby the private sector.

Engineer in ResidenceThe Engineer in Residence programwill begin in spring 2005. The goal ofthis program is to invite our alumniback to the department on anindividual basis to stay “in residence”for one or more days. They will sharetheir professional experience with ourstudents and faculty, and exposestudents to the “real-world”applications of their academic work.They will also share their perspectiveson how to leverage their degree tobuild a successful career.

Planned activities for the alumincludes:

• Giving a seminar that covers thelatest trends in their field.

• Private office for studentappointments.

• An informal pizza lunch forstudent Q&A.

• Participation in a pertinent CScourse.

• A dinner with faculty doingresearch relevant to their field.

The first Engineer in Residence willbe David Burns, BS ’93, who works atthe IBM Innovation Center inChicago. He will share his experiencein human factor engineering.

Upcoming events

Alumni reception at IBMA number of alums attended thefall reception and spoke withdepartment head Marc Snir, onleft. These included MaryPeterson Yost, BS ‘88, who worksin autonomic computing; EyshaPowers, BS ‘03, in Z/OS softwaredevelopment; and Mike Powers,BS ‘01 in CE, in technologydevelopment.

January 26-28 Cisco DaysFebruary TBD Engineering in Residence -

David Burns, BS ‘93March 11-12 Engineering Open HouseApril 28-30 IDCSA Conference and CS

Open House 30 Executive Advisory Council

meeting 30 Awards ceremony for

continuing studentsMay 14 Awards ceremony for

graduates 15 Commencement

Staying connected@engineering.uiuc.edu

Do you know the easiest way tostay connected to the department,college, university, and anyone elseimportant to you, without the hassleof giving out your new email addressevery time you move? Just sign up fora free engineering lifetime forwardingemail address. It’s very easy toregister for a new account and to setup a forwarding address.

Visit https://engineering.uiuc.edu/email/signup.htm.

Thomas M. Siebel CenteDedication and

April 29 - M

Tom Siebel with Marc Snir,department head

Dedication ceremony

Peter Bohlin, BCJ, gives alums anoverview of the Center’s architecture

Distinguished panels onwomen in computer science

and technology

The BFG was a student-developed and -run virtualreality game. Teams, comprised of alumni, corporate

reps, faculty, and students, extracted packets ofancient wisdom as quickly as they could. Players were

tracked using a state-of-the-art RFID system, whichrelayed their positions in a virtual 3-D environment.

The open house showcased student and faculty researchprojects to the alumni and university and local community.

The audience could watch all the actionsites on the lobby wall screen.

The command center (above) gives instructions to theirplayers (above left) located in the lower-level “dig”.

er for Computer ScienceGrand Opening

May 1, 2004

Videos of Siebel Center, the history of the department,and the BFG competition can be found on the CS website.

10 ALUMNI NEWS

Department Awards

Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Fellowship Raja Afandi andMuhammad Awan

Bronze Tablet Shawn Lindberg, Michael Munie,Tejash Patel, Joshua Paul, Daniel Pozdol, andCurtis Yiu

Roy J. Carver Fellowship Geoffrey LevineRichard T. Cheng Fellowship Chih-wei HsuSara & Louis Cohen Scholarship Soumi SinhaCrow, Chizek & Co. LLP Outstanding Student

Scholarship Kristen ZhangCS Fellowship Mark Hills and Lars OlsonDepartment Staff Awards Vicky Gress, Rick

Henderson, Deb Israel, and Rick Van HookDunn Systems Scholarship Dan PetersonC.W. Gear Outstanding Graduate Award Anand

RanganathanC.W. Gear Outstanding Undergraduate Awards

Michael Januszyk and Michael MunieC.W. Gear Outstanding Faculty Award Sariel Har-

PeledDelta Sigma Omicron Distinguished Teaching

Award Roy CampbellGK-12 NSF Teaching Fellowship Rebecca Hartman-

Baker and Mike MullanGraduate Service Awards Jodie Patricia Boyer,

Tony Y. Chang, Shamsi Tamara Iqbal, KiranSubramanyam Lakkaraju, and NathanaelAustin Thompson

Franz Hohn & J.P. Nash Scholarship Jessica Schoen

Michael Hughes Award Galo Avila, Klaudiusz Baran,Neil Hiner, Tao Luo, Brian Neradt, EvgeniPeryshkin, Paul Stanton, and Natalia Ziemianska

ILLIAC Fellowship Changhao Jiang, Chao Liu, DeepakRamachandran, Bin Tan, Abhishek Tiwari, andJing Yu

Intel PhD Fellowship Ruchira SasankaKodak Fellowship Won Jong JeonKrell Institution Graduate Fellowship Michael WolfAndrew and Shana Laursen Fellowship Zheng Shao and

Jagadeesan Sundaresan

Duncan H. Lawrie Award Bo LuC.L. & Jane W.-S. Liu Award Koushik SenNSF Graduate Research Fellowship Erin WolfNVidia Fellowship Jesse HallRay Ozzie Fellowship Changhao JiangJohn R. Pasta Award Christopher Cameron and

Blair FlickerW.J. Poppelbaum Memorial Award Jayanth Srinivasan

and Pin ZhouSiebel Scholars Ellick Chan, Trebor Donarski, Robin

Dhamankar, Julia Dragan-Chirila, andTimothy Ericksson

Daniel L. Slotnick Award Joshua PaulJames N. Snyder Awards Rohit Puranik and Soumi SinhaSpyglass Scholarship Jean He, Haley Miller, Anusha

Priya, and Parisa TabrizSURGE Fellowship Jodie Boyer and Brian DavisVerizon Fellowship Vartika Bhandari and

Matthew MarquisseeVodafone Fellowship Qixin Wang, Yuan Xue, Yaling

Yang, and Honghai ZhangVodafone Scholarship Dan PetersonWilliam & Ruth Witt Scholarship Huong Nguyen

We would like to recognize the following students,faculty, and staff members for their excellence and hardwork.

Outstanding contribution to Siebel openingA. Antrim, M. Belcher, P. Bergschneider, O. Bernal, T.Chang, J. Chau, P. DeRose, T. Donarshi, C. Garver, H.Goffin, L. Guilamo, M. Hallock, E. Hauptmann, A.Hoesley, H. Izurieta, P. Le, S. Lee, Y. Li, T. Nguyen, S.Rios, P. Schlichting, D. Schmidt, J. Schranz, S.Severinghaus, R. Sharma, M. Stanislawski, L.Sturnfield, W. Su, M. Treaster, S. Yang, N. Ziemianska,with Prof. Roy Campbell, and Mike Woodley.

B. FlickerE. Chen

J. Boyer

R. Hartman-Baker

K. Lakkaraju

M. Marquissee

J.Yu

Fall 2004 11

HP is partnering with the departmentto redesign a course that incorporatesthe innovative use of mobile techno-logy in the classroom. The awardincludes a $37,500 grant in addition to21 wireless HP tablet PCs, 11 tabletPC docking stations, a portable digitalprojector, printer, and help desksupport.

CS 173, an introductory course fordiscrete mathematics, was selected forthis initiative. This highly mathema-tical course has been a difficult hurdlefor some students and has a higherthan average drop rate.

“We envision a learning environ-ment where no student feels isolatedand collaboration is encouraged,rewarded, and always available,” saidCinda Heeren, instructor for this pilotsection.

One course section will be pilotedin spring 2005 for 40 students, withpriority enrollment offered to womenand minority students. Each studentwill be provided a tablet PC for thesemester. The HP equipment will beused in conjunction with e-Fuzionsoftware that was originally createdby two CS undergraduates in 2001.e-Fuzion is a system that integratesthe instructor’s and students’displays, allowing text and images tobe shared seamlessly.

The tablet PCs will document theexperience of the learners in studygroups. Notes from study sessionswill be available to all students via anotes repository on the class website,so that all students benefit from othercollaborations. The redesigned CSclass will permit students to annotatethe instructor’s notes during class andsave them for later perusal, providemessaging for remote collaborationbetween study groups, engage ingroup problem solving via shareddesktops, and receive real-timefeedback during lectures.

Class redesign withHP help

Graduate students Yixin Chen andChih-Wei Hsu, along with theiradvisor ECE Prof. Benjamin Wah,won two prizes at the fourthInternational Planning Competitionheld as part of the InternationalConference of Automated Planningand Scheduling. The team won firstprize for the Suboptimal MetricTemporal Track and second prize forthe Suboptimal Propositional Track.

Graduate students SathishGopalakrishnan, Chi-Sheng Shih,and Chang-Gun Lee received the beststudent paper award for “FiniteHorizon Scheduling of Radar Dwellwith Online Template Construction,”at the Real-Time Systems Symposium.

Graduate student MatthewMarquissee was presented with theIllinois 2004 Muscular DystrophyAssociation Personal AchievementAward. The honor recognizes thepersonal and professional accom-plishments of individuals with anyform of neuro-muscular disease.

One of two programming teamswill be heading to Shanghai in Aprilfor finals of the 29th Annual ACMProgramming Competition. This isthe third team in as many years tomake the finals. The team, JohnCarrino and Jeffrey Tamer from CS,and Stephen Downing from MIE,was one of the top 76 teams out of4,100 that will advance to theprogramming finals. A second teamconsisting of CS students SeanMonahan, Yisong Yue, and DavidFlint placed ninth at the regionals.

StevenHannekewas nameda finalist andPatrickMeredithwas given

an honorable mention in the Com-puting Research Association’s (CRA)Outstanding Undergraduate Awardsfor 2005. They were cited for theiroutstanding research potential inan area of computing research.Hanneke’s research was in machinelearning and Meredith’s was inprogram optimization.

Two freshmen CS students received ajump start on the fall semester byattending the Illinois Minority Pre-College Internship (IMPRINT)summer program offered by theCollege of Engineering. Theyattended classes and worked on aresearch project with professorsLenny Pitt and Cinda Heeren.

Jovany Chaidez and Luiz Mendesteamed with Alan Perez-Rathke,senior in CS, who served as theirmentor. Their project was to create aninnovative method to introduce a CStopic to young students. The triobrainstormed for ideas and came upwith an arcade game, Logic Hunt.

IMPRINT programleaves mark

Student news

A. Perez-Rathke

J. ChaidezL. Mendes

Their Tetris-like game teaches theplayer basic concepts of prepositionallogic using animation and color.Logical expressions appear as blocksthat can be controlled as they fall. Asthe player positions the blocks toform a true logical expression, theygain points and the blocks disappear.

Chaidez, who had taken a VisualBasic course while high school, cameup with the idea of an arcade game asa vehicle for their learning program.Mendes, who had taken C++ duringhis sophomore year at high schooland was taking a CS course insummer school, worked on thecoding. Perez-Rathke, with many CScourses behind him, helped themwith the structure and algorithms.

The freshmen enjoyed theexperience of working as a team andagreed that this project would helpthem with future classes.

Test your logic skills aticarus.cs.uiuc.edu/LogicHunt/LogicHunt.html.

S. Hanneke P. Meredith

12 ALUMNI NEWS

New in CSProfessors Brian Bailey and

Marianne Winslett were among sixchosen as faculty fellows by theNational Center for SupercomputingApplications (NCSA) for 2004.Bailey’s research is in human-computer interactions and Winslett’sresearch is in databases.

Kevin Chang, Jiawei Han, andYuanyuan Zhou are recipients of theIBM Faculty Awards for 2004. Theaward provides $40,000 in funding toeach outstanding faculty, forexploratory research in areasimportant to IBM. This highlycompetitive award may be renewedfor up to three years, but awardeesmust be reselected in the annualcompetition.

AnHai Doan received the ACMDistinguished Doctoral DissertationAward. The award is presentedannually for the best doctoraldissertation in computer science andengineering in 2003.

Five computer science facultymembers received National ScienceFoundation CAREER awards thisyear, the greatest number awarded inany one year for the department. Theawardees were assistant professorsAnHai Doan, Robin Kravets,ChengXiang Zhai, Yuanyuan Zhou,and Craig Zilles.

Jiawei Han was presented with theACM Innovations Award in 2004.Han is regarded as a pioneerresearcher in data mining andknowledge discovery and has mademany fundamental researchcontributions in the areas of noveland efficient algorithms for frequentpattern mining, attribute-orientedinduction methods, spatial datamining and clustering, stream mining,and data warehousing.

Jiawei Han was also named anACM Fellow for his contributions inknowledge discovery and datamining. Fellows are among the top1% of ACM’s 75,000 members.

The Emperor of Japan awarded TheOrder of the Sacred Treasure, GoldRays to Saburo Muroga, professoremeritus. Muroga was recognized as“one of Japan’s computer pioneers,”and a globally significant leader in theextensive field of informationprocessing since the early stages ofJapan’s computer era.

Lenny Pitt was named UniversityDistinguished Teacher/Scholar, anhonor held by only a handful offaculty. The program recognizestalented faculty members and givesthem an opportunity to take an activerole in enhancing teaching andlearning on campus.

Josep Torrellas was named anIEEE Fellow for his for contributionsto shared-memory multiprocessors.For 2004, 260 were elected members,which represents less than 0.1% ofIEEE’s 380,000 members.

ChengXiang Zhai and his studentsHui Fang and Tao Tao received theSIGIR 2004 Best Paper Award fortheir paper “A Formal Study ofInformation Retrieval Heuristics.”

Ten new professors will join the ranksof the department faculty, bringingthe total number to 57. There are now6 research professors, 24 assistant, 11associate, and 16 full professors.

Margaret Fleck,research associateprofessor, received herPhD from YaleUniversity in 1982. Herrecent work has centered

on automatically understanding (e.g.,via speech recognition) stories thatpeople tell about their personalphotograph collections, to createbetter user interfaces for thesecollections. She joins the artificialintelligence research area.

David Forsyth,professor, received hisPhD from OxfordUniversity in 1989. Hisresearch is at theforefront in the field of

computer vision. He has been aprofessor at the University of Calif-ornia at Berkeley since 1994. His workin generic object recognition employstechniques not only from physics andmathematics but also from the fieldsof probability and machine learningtheory. His work enhances thecomputer vision research area andwill complement other areas such asmachine learning and graphics.

Carl A. Gunter,professor, received hisPhD from the Universityof Wisconsin at Madisonin 1986. His research is inthe areas of security,

networks, software engineering, andprogramming languages. He has beena professor of computer and informa-tion sciences at the University ofPennsylvania since 1987 and wasdirector of Penn Security Lab. He alsoserved as chief scientific advisor toProbaris Technologies in 2001. Hestrengthens the department’s securityresearch area.

Faculty news

A. Doan R. Kravets C. Zhai Y. Zhou C. Zilles

PromotionsJeff Erickson was promoted to

associate professor. His research is inthe areas of algorithms, data struc-tures, and lower bounds; andcomputational and discrete geometry.

Steven M. LaValle was promotedto associate professor. His researchfocuses on robotics, motion planning,computational geometry, computervision, computer vision and graphics,and computational biology.

Fall 2004 13

Elsa Gunter, researchassociate professor,received her PhD fromthe University ofWisconsin at Madison in1987. Her research

interests focus on the design andapplication of tools for the verificationof properties of protocols, programs,programming language semantics,and embedded systems. She joins theformal methods and software verifi-cation and validation research area.

Luddy Harrison,associate professor,received his PhD fromthe University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign in1989. His research

includes the areas of programmingmodels and tools for communicationsystems, optimizing compilertechnology, hardware/software co-design, and processor architecture.He was founder of CCC, whichdeveloped and marketed portableoptimizing compiler technology. Hewas most recently co-manager andchief architect of the Communica-tions Compiler Team at Intel aftertheir purchase of CCC.

Anil Hirani, assistantprofessor, received hisPhD from the CaliforniaInstitute of Technologyin 2003. He worked forsix years as a software

engineer for graphics at Sun Micro-systems and as a researcher at SonyCorporation before embarking on hisPhD. His research goal is to bridgethe gap between scientific computa-tion and computational mathematics,and computer science. He would liketo bring growth opportunities tocomputer science from scientificcomputing, and bring more realism inapplications to scientific computingfrom computer science. He will joinCS in fall 2005.

Karrie Karahalios,assistant professor,received her PhD fromMassachusetts Instituteof Technology in 2004.

Her research focuses on the cultural,sociological, and technical features ofcommunication. Her work pushes theedge of how we think about and usecomputers. Her expertise is an assetto the HCI research area is also anexcellent fit with the educationaltechnology and ubiquitouscomputing research areas.

Haiyun Luo, assistantprofessor, received hisPhD from the Universityof California at LosAngeles in 2004. Hisresearch is in wireless

and mobile networking, sensornetworking, and wireless networksecurity. His goal is to design andbuild scalable, efficient, and securewireless systems to enable ubiquitousinformation and service availability.His work complements the currentresearch in networking and distri-buted systems.

Darko Marinov,assistant professor,received his PhD fromMassachusetts Instituteof Technology in 2004.His research is in the

areas of software engineering andprogramming languages. As part ofhis thesis, he developed a system forthe systematic generation of test casesfor programs that is currently beingused for code testing at Microsoft.With his broad knowledge ofcompilers, theorem proving, andcombinatorics, he strengthens the tiesamong many areas of research.

MadhusudanParthasarathy, assistantprofessor, received hisPhD from the Universityof Madras in 2002. Hisresearch interests are in

software analysis; formal methods;control synthesis for timed anddistributed systems; and theory ofautomata, games, logic, andconcurrency. His goal is to developtechniques and tools that increaseconfidence in the systems. Hisbreadth of skills will be an asset to theformal methods group.

Two retireRetirement has not slowed downDenny Mickunas and Bob Skeel. Theyhave traded their CS jobs for otherendeavors. Mickunas is testing outthe theory that the grass is alwaysgreener on the other side. For the nextfew years he will be a student in theuniversity’s College of Law, settinghis sights on patent law. Skeel is now

a professor atPurdue University.

In 1973 DennyMickunas receivedhis PhD fromPurdue Universityin computerscience and joinedthe department asan assistant

professor. Through the years hisresearch has focused on pro-gramming languages, compilerconstruction, technology transfer,and intellectual property rights forsoftware. He has been activelyinvolved in the NSF-funded ActiveSpaces research lab with hisresearch in security and ubiquitouscom-puting. He also helpedestablish the Center for AdvancedResearch in Information Security(CARIS). He became the associatedepartment head in 2000.

Bob Skeelbecame an assistantprofessor in thedepartment in 1974after receiving hisPhD in computerscience from theUniversity ofAlberta that same

year. His research has focused onphysics-based models, numericalalgorithms, and massive computationin collaboration with biophysicists.Skeel is also a developer of NAMD, aparallel molecular dynamics program,which received a Gordon Bell Awardfor high-performance computing in2002.

We wish them the best in their“retirement.”

14 ALUMNI NEWS

Adve, Vikram, Cooperative Hardware/Software Designs for VirtualInstruction Set Computers, NSF, $150,000

Amir, Eyal, Logical Filtering, DARPA, $880,000DeJong, Gerald, Incorporating Prior

Domain Knowledge into aSupport Vector MachineClassifier with Explanation-BasedLearning, NSF, $342,101

Doan, AnHai, Evolving and Self-Managing Data Integration, NSFCAREER, $500,000

Doan, AnHai, Privacy-PreservingData Integration and Sharing,NSF ITR, $216,964.

Han, Jiawei, High-Performance Parallel Data Mining for AdvancedApplications, Intel Corp., $42,000

Hou, Jennifer, A Component-Based Software Environment for NetworkProtocols in Next-Generation Networks, NSF, $347,000

Kamin, Sam, HP Technology forTeaching Grant Initiative withEngineering/CS Retention, HP,$37,500Kamin, Samuel, BuildingCommunities: Recruiting andRetention of UnderrepresentedGroups in Computer Science, NSF,$1,000,000Kravets, Robin, Pulsar: A Cross-Layer Approach to EnergyConservation in Mobile Ad HocNetworks, NSF CAREER, $448,444

Ponce, Jean, 3D Object Modeling, Recognition and Classification fromPhotographs, Toyota, $73,744

Roth, Dan, Cross-Document EntityIdentification and Tracing,ONR, $224,000

Roth, Dan, Kindle: Knowledge andInference via DescriptionLogics for Natural Language,DOI, $700,000

Roth, Dan, Natural LanguageProcessing Technology forGuided Study ofBioinformatics, NSF, $270,000

Viswanathan, Mahesh, Monitoringand Checking of DistributedSystem with Respect to FormalSpecializations, NSF, $270,000

Zhai, ChengXiang, User-Centralized Adaptive Information Retrieval, NSFCAREER, $510,000

Zhou, Yuanyuan, Improving Storage System Performance, Dependability, andManageability Using System Mining Techniques, NSF CAREER, $449,405

Zilles, Craig, A Framework for Dynamic Self-Tuning of General PurposePrograms, NSF CAREER, $410,000

Recent research grants

A $5 million, five-year grant from theNational ScienceFoundation willenable a collabor-ation of researchersat the university inthe fields of biology

and informatics to create BeeSpace, asystem to help scientists analyze allsources of information relevant to themechanisms of social behavior.

The complex society of theWestern honeybee, Apis mellifera, willdrive the information system. “Wewill take a fresh look at the funda-mental problem of the mechanism ofbehavior, whether behavior is causedby nature or nurture,” said BruceSchatz, professor of library andinformation science and director ofthe Community Architectures forNetwork Information Systems(CANIS) Laboratory, a campusresource for new informationsystems.

CS professor ChengXiang Zhaiwill lead a research team to developscalable and robust techniques foranalyzing and integrating all relevantinformation to the study of the honey-bee’s social behavior, including therecently sequenced bee genome,genomic and proteomic databases,and the complete scientific literature.New text-mining software will createa bee-focused thesaurus, or “conceptspace,” to help navigate through thediverse database and literaturesources.

“Information retrieval, naturallanguage processing, and data miningtechniques will be applied to elicitbiology knowledge buried in theliterature and discover patterns ingenomes and gene expressioninformation to help biologistsformulate appropriate researchhypotheses and design more effectiveexperiments,” said Zhai.

Info system analyzessocial beehavior

Tagged bees

Jennifer Hou giving a demo at open house

Dan Roth (standing) with Kindle groupRodrigo de Salvo Braz, Mark Sammons,

Vasin Punyakanok, and Roxana Girju

Fall 2004 15

ChicTech is an integral part of theUniversity of Illinois Department ofComputer Science’s Building Com-munities initiative, which recentlyreceived $1 million in funding fromthe National Science Foundation tohelp recruit and retain more womenand minority students in theinformation technology workforce.

Initiatives involving the formationof supportive communities haverepeatedly demonstrated success inreducing the hesitancy of women toenter the discipline and the tendency,for those who do enter, to transfer outbefore graduating. These supportnetworks reduce the all-too-real senseof gender isolation that plagues manyfemale CS students. Professor SamKamin, Director of UndergraduatePrograms and PI for the NSF grant,sees the ChicTech program as a‘double play.’

The Building Communities effortdoes not stop at recruiting. Before herfall computer science classes started,Mathur attended the Women inEngineering orientation, where shemet other female students new to CS.There were a number of activitiesincluding the highly successful “lowropes” course that required groups ofthe new freshmen to work together inteams with older undergraduate andgraduate women from the CS pro-gram to solve a series of team-building problems. Group facilitatorsguided them through each of half adozen challenges.

This year’s sophomore classincludes a tightly knit group of

women that was formedduring the challengecourse conducted as partof last year’s FreshmanOrientation. “Thechallenge course was somuch fun and it really didbuild a team spirit amongthe women in our class,”said Olga Vinogradova.“I’m rooming with one ofthe women I met there,and our entire group of friends eithermet at Orientation or met as a resultof it.”

Many of these sophomores, allmembers of UIUC’s Women inComputer Science student organi-zation, are now active in the ChicTechInitiative, taking time out of theirrigorous course schedule toevangelize the benefits of a computerscience education.

The fall classes have started, and PJMathur has a busy schedule both inand out of the classroom. “Eventhough my CS homework is hard, Ialways have fun doing it. I am in CS196, the honors course for my otherclass, CS 173. As a class project I ammaking a computer game thatinvolves CS and what we have beenlearning in class. I don’t always knowwhat I am doing. It is a huge projectbut I am having fun doing it,” saidMathur.

Mathur has come full circle thisfall. She is part of the ChicTech teamthat returned to her high school totalk to a group of girls whose numberhad increased from the year before.

Communities continued from p. 1

About the BuildingCommunities Program

Through the National ScienceFoundation $1 million-fundedproject, the CS department is servingas the lead institution together withhigher education partners—EasternIllinois University, Illinois StateUniversity, Parkland College,Heartland Community College, andBradley University — and a largepublic school district. Together theywill create new initiatives whileundertaking activities pioneered atIllinois. Current initiatives include:

• Java Engagement for TeacherTraining (JETT) — workshop held inconjunction with the College Boardto train high school teachers in Java.

• Online resources for highschool CS teachers.

• Development of curricularmaterials for high schools to helpintroduce computer science to theirstudents.

• Orientation for freshmen —team-building “challenge course,”panel discussions, and mentoring byupper class women and graduatestudents.

• Women in CS club• Technical Ambassadors

Competition — teams of high schoolgirls create projects and compete forprizes.

• Games for Girls — collegewomen compete in the constructionof computer games for K-12 girls.

“ChicTech has been helpful in building acommunity spirit among our female under-graduates. As they go into the high schools toraise awareness about the discipline, ourundergraduate women seem to be cementing theirown commitment to CS, bolstering our retentionfigures,” Samuel Kamin explained. “At the sametime, they’re reaching the younger girls we need

in the pipeline, creating awareness of what computer sciencereally is and building the interest in CS of high school students.”

Freshmen orientation:forming bonds throughactivities and challenges

Samuel Kamin

16 ALUMNI NEWS

To meet the growing demand for advancededucation critical areas, the department hasintroduced the Computer Security Certificateas part of its Illinois Internet ComputerScience (I2CS) program.

The online program is constantly evolving—anticipating the needs of the informationtechnology field.

The certificate requires completion of threecourses: information assurance, computersecurity architecture, and an advanced topicscourse. I2CS students receive the same high-quality lectures (captured live and streamedover the Internet), assignments, and exams asthe on-campus students.

In addition, I2CS offers other certificates ininformation systems, system architecturenetworks and distributed systems, andsoftware engineering.

Since its establishment in 1998, 114 I2CSstudents have graduated with a Master ofComputer Science degree. During the fall2004 semester, there were 60 degree studentsand 60 non-degree enrollments.

“Our goal is to provide I2CS students withas much of the on-campus experience aspossible, while offering a flexible,convenient option for busy professionalswho want to advance their careers througheducation,” explained Mehdi Harandi,director of graduate programs.

New online computer security certificate offered

Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer ScienceUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign201 N. Goodwin AvenueUrbana, IL 61801

For more information regarding online graduate degree and certificateprograms, visit www.cs.uiuc.edu/i2cs.