Volume 7 : No. 1 - Spring 2003

www.cs.duke.edu

Faculty development continues to be our top priority and we havemany announcements to make. First, we have been delighted towelcome Associate Professor Carlo Tomasi to our ranks. Carlo is anexpert in computer vision who comes to us from Stanford University, and he has quickly begun to integrate into ourresearch and teaching programs. Carlo is doing work in the automatic recognition of cancerous tissue in conjunctionwith the School of Medicine, on robot stereo vision, and generic problems in image processing. Second, we are proud toannounce the promotion to Associate Professor and tenure for both Alvin Lebeck and Amin Vahdat (subject to Boardof Trustees approval). Alvy has distinguished himself in computer architecture over the years, especially in the efficientdesign and use of memory hierarchies in computations. Amin has become very well known in the design and analysis ofcomputer networks. In addition to our own hiring, we are very pleased that the Department of Electrical andComputer Engineering has brought in Dan Sorin, a computer architect who has a secondary appointment in ourdepartment and is working closely with Alvy.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Carla Ellis has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactionson Computer Systems. This journal has risen in rank to become one of the most highly regarded in the community.

Our programming team has done it again in the Fall 2002 ACM Mid-Atlantic Regional Programming Contestand won high honors. We had three teams of students entering all of who placed in the top 20 teams. Our best teamfinished fourth thus qualifying them to go in March to the 27th Annual International Collegiate ProgrammingContest World Finals in Beverely Hills, California. The world contest brings together winners from six continentsand over 1,100 universities in a final shoot-out. This will be their eighth time to compete at the world level in nineyears. Congratulations to Professors Owen Astrachan and Susan Rodger and their many student programmers fortheir achievement.

Alan BiermannDepartment Chair

threads THE NEW

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New faculty member, Carlo Tomasi studied computer vision at Carnegie Mellon University,and later taught and conducted research in this field at Cornell, Stanford, and now Duke.Before CMU, he studied electrical communications and information theory in Padova, inhis native Italy. Galileo taught mechanics and astronomy in the same city, but he andCarlo never met.

Computer vision is a young discipline, about as young as Carlo himself. It attempts tounderstand and replicate on a computer some of the achievements of human vision: howto tell near from far, or a building from a tree, and how to guide a hand to grasp a spoon,or a car to take us to the airport.

Carlo’s fascination with vision, human and otherwise, has both a conceptual and a practicalmotivation. Conceptually, vision is one of the most external, and therefore most readilyaccessible, aspects of intelligence: The retinas at the back of our eyes are parts of the brainthat during embryonic development project out and away from the rest of gray matter,leaving trails behind them in the form of optical nerves. Effortless as it seems to us, eachact of visual perception is in fact a process of complex, intelligent inference. Working onvision algorithms then amounts to making inroads into the understanding of humanintelligence.

carlotomasiAssociate professor

of Computer Science

Practically, and with the help of ever faster and memory-laden computers,computer vision has shown and promises to enable an enormous range of

applications. Carlo has sampled several of these, from the automaticdiagnosis of colon or lung cancer, to the fast search of images on theInternet, and to the guidance of robot arms or vehicles. In the pasttwo years, Carlo has helped establish Canesta, a California

startup company that makes vision-based interfaces for portableelectronic devices, and was recently listed as one of Red Herring’s ten

companies to watch. If one of these years you see Carlo drive a Ferrari, itmust mean that Canesta went public.

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Faculty Feature

The Grace Hopper Celebration ofWomen in Computing 2002 is thefourth in a series of conferencesdesigned to bring the research and careerinterests of women in computing to theforefront. Presenters were leaders intheir respective fields, representingindustrial, academic and governmentcommunities. Leading researcherspresent their current work, while specialsessions focus on the role of women intoday’s technology fields.Past Grace Hopper Celebrations haveresulted in collaborative proposals, net-working and mentoring for juniorwomen, and increased visibility for thecontributions of women in computing.This year’s theme, “Ubiquity,” focuseson the ubiquity of the impact ofcomputers on our daily lives and theubiquity of the impact women aremaking on this technical force.

GraceHopperCelebration of Women

ACM Mid-AtlanticProgramming Contest

The ACM Mid-Atlantic Programming Contest was held on Saturday,November 16, 2002 at eight sites, including Duke. The Duke Team ofAlbert Mao, Ethan Eade and Thomas Finley is heading to the WorldFinals in March!From thousands of teams competing in regional contests held fromSeptember to December 2002 world-wide, sixty teams will advance tothe World Finals March 22-26, 2003, at Merv’s Beverly Hilton inBeverly Hills California during the Academy Awards week. Prizes,scholarships, and bragging rights are at stake for some of the world’sfinest university students of computing.

Adel Gawdat - UTA for CPS 1Received the Computer Science Undergraduate Teaching Assistantaward for the month of November 2002.

Adel was noted for inspiring students to work hard, possessing in-depth knowledge of computer science, and always having a helpfuland positive attitude.

Wai-Ping Chim - head UTA for CPS 1Received the Computer Science Undergraduate Teaching Assistantaward for the month of October 2002.

Wai-Ping was cited for her knowledge of the material, innovationin connecting her laptop up to the projection screen to demonstratehow to use the editor, importance as a good troubleshooter inlab, and style in just being “super helpful and nice”. Wai-Pinghas also done a commendable job in helping to develop new ma-terial and manage the laboratory sessions.

Jessica Smith - UTA for CPS 100Received the Computer Science Undergraduate Teaching AssistantAward for the month of September 2002.

Jessica gave out her AOL Instant Messenger screen name so thatshe could hold “virtual” office hours. She was also complimentedfor her strong grasp of algorithms, clear explanations, andrespectful manner in which she treated students.

Undergraduate

Teaching Assistant Awards

The I.T. Career Planning Conference (CPC) isan Eli Lilly & Company-sponsored activity for

recruiting top minority talent, offering them theopportunity to look at Eli Lilly & Company, thecity of Indianapolis, and to participate in careerdevelopment sessions. Thirteen students from

several campuses attended this year’s conference.Two Duke CS undergraduate students,

Ayonike Akingbade and Bryan Chavez, werechosen to attend the conference.

After participating in CPC and completing asuccessful interview, students can decide to

participate in a summer I.T. internship at Lilly.CPC participants are guaranteed an interview for

Lilly’s I.T. internship program.

Undergrads Attend CPC

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FACULTY NEWS

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1993Richard Levine - Bootstrap Software, Inc.CEOLevine has recently finished the development of coldwellbanker.com.

1991Ray Houghton - Cyber HausCEOHoughton has been selected as a member of a People to PeopleAmbassador. He is a retired college professor and former USgovernment computer scientist.

1983Jothy Rosenberg - GeoTrust, Inc.Co-founder, Chief Scientist, and VP EngineeringRosenberg’s company is in the security business authenticatingbusinesses and displaying their confirmed identity on the Web.

Pamela Kennedy Fink - St. Mary’s UniversityAssistant ProfessorFink recently accepted the position of Assistant Professor ofComputer Science at St. Mary’s. She has spent the past 10 years atSouthwest Research Institute as a research development specialistin artificial intelligence.

1982Michael Redmond - La Salle UniversityAssociate ProfessorRedmond has achieved the title of Associate Professor at La Sallein the Math and Computer Science Department.

Amin Vahdathas been promoted to Associate Professorand received tenure

Pankaj Agarwalhas been named an ACM Fellow

Alvy Lebeckhas been promoted to Associate Professorand received tenure

ALUMNI NEWS

2002Brian Hanczaryk - IBMHanczaryk was married June 22, 2002 to Katie Fruit, our Assistantto the Directors of Undergraduate Studies.

2001Paúl Pauca - Wake Forest UniversityAssistant ProfessorPauca has accepted a teaching position at Wake Forest as an AssistantProfessor in the Department of Computer Science.

1999Adam Brod - IntralinksJava DeveloperBrod has made the big cross-country move from San Francisco to Boston.

Charles PaikPaik was married on June 8, 2002.

1998Jennifer Berger BrownUniversity of Georgia - Law StudentBrown was married to Robert Brown on June 26, 2002.

Hank DeGregorio - OPEX CorporationSoftware EngineerDeGregorio has earned a Master of Science in Engineering (Computerand Information Science) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Joseph Fitzgerald - American Management SystemsFitzgerald ran the Marine Corps Marathon in DC and has startedFitnessGiant.com, a Web site that sells fitness equipment.

Eric JewartJewart announced his engagement to Melissa Beachy in December 2002.

David Raymond - US ArmyXO, DOTRaymond has a new baby boy, Lucas.

1994Rajah Chacko - IBMChacko has been promoted to Bioengineer at LipoScience.

Vivek Khera - Khera Communications, Inc.CEOKhera’s company launched an Internet service for small to mediumsized businesses, MailerMailer.com.

news news newsEach year, U.S. News & WorldReport calculates new schoolrankings in five areas-business,education, engineering, law,and medicine-that include themost popular choices for post-baccalaureate study. Theirrankings in these areas arebased on two broad types ofdata-expert opinion aboutprogram quality and statisticalindicators that describe thestrength of a school’s faculty,

its research, and the performanceof students both as they enter andleave. This year Duke ComputerScience Department was ranked20th in the U.S.—an impressivespot among the nation’s mostprestigious graduate schools.Duke CS also ranked 16th inAlgorithms and Theory.

The 2003“BestGraduateSchools”Rankings!

The Department of Computer Science at Duke Universityheld its annual Industrial Partners Program (IPP)Meeting, TECHCONNECT 2002, on September 24,2002. Our goal is to create value for our IndustryPartners by producing graduates and research productsthat are relevant to the industry’s needs. Current andpotential Partners were welcome to attend this event.In addition to providing information aboutour innovative education and research programs,we structured plenty of time for interaction withstudents and faculty, and student recruitingopportunities.

Tech

Connect

2002 Annual Industry Meeting

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Student NewsCongratulations to our Summer/Fall 2002 CS Graduates !

Undergraduate DegreesJude Al Khalil- 2nd major (AB)

Thomas Cooper Bethea- 1st major (AB)

Robert Broussard Hosea- 1st major (AB)

Archie Ita Otu- 1st major (AB)

Chinmaya Kumar Sahoo- 2nd major (AB)

Ray Hang Tsai- 1st major (BS)

Arthur Oliver Tucker, IV- 2nd major (ECE)

Jennifer Joy Bedell- 1st major (AB)

Tony Gjolaj- 2nd major (AB)

Brian Matthew Goldfarb- 1st major (AB)

Jason Byungil Ko- (Minor)

Tara Marie Kraft- 1st major (AB)

Edmond Fredderick Magny- 1st major (AB)

Adam Jerald Mercer- 1st major (AB)

Aara Elizabeth Moore- 1st major (AB)

Andy Ng- 2nd major (ECE)

Graduation with High Distinction

Thomas William Finley- 1st major (BS)

Master’s Degrees

Haifeng YuAdvisor: Amin VahdatWide-Area Replication Using Continuous Consistency:Theory and Practice

Darrell AndersonAdvisor: Jeffrey S. ChaseVirtualized Network Storage

Mithuna ThottethodiCo-advisors: Alvin Lebeck and Shubhendu S.MukherjeeTechniques for High Bandwidth, Low Latency Intercon-nection Network Operation at High Offered Loads

Octavian ProcopiucCo-advisors: Jeffrey S. Vitter and Lars ArgeAlgorithms for Very Large Spatial Databases

Ph.D. Degrees

Sathish GovindarajanAdvisor: Pankaj AgarwalHandling Large Spatial Data: Approximationand Data Structures

Nabil MustafaAdvisor: Pankaj AgarwalGeometry of Shapes: Simplification, Matchingand Analysis

Donald OnyangoAdvisor: Owen AstrachanAn Exploratory Evaluation and ComparativeAnalysis of Educational Graphics Used inIntroductory Computer Science Courses

Omer AsadAdvisor: Jeffrey S. ChaseDASH: Dynamic Resource ProvisioningInfrastructure for Data Centers

Vijay AbhijitAdvisor: Carla EllisExperiences with an In-Building LocationTracking System: UHURA

Nicoleta PopoviciuAdvisor: Alan BiermannGraphics / Spoken Language Processor as aLearning Tool and Dialog Enabler

Parag PalekarAdvisor: Jun YangAnalysis of an Incremental Algorithm forMining Frequent Itemsets

CRAOutstandingUndergraduateAward2003

Thomas Finley has been selected for Honorable Mention inthe Computing Research Association’s Outstanding Under-graduate Award program for 2003.

thomasfinley

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This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commendedfor making significant contributions to more than one research project, several wereauthors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at majorconferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.

Thomas was cited for demonstrating outstanding research potential in computingresearch. He worked as an undergraduate research assistant for the project JAWAA, ascripting language for creating animations easily over the Web, and also on the projectJFLAP, an educational software tool for creating and simulating several versions ofautomata. For his work on JFLAP, Thomas was also awarded Graduation withHigh Distinction by the Computer Science faculty.