SOUNDBYTE Fall 2023
$20M AI-CLIMATE Institute Combats Climate Change with Artificial Intelligence Lind Hall Renovations Improve Student Services and Highlight Diversity 1
Table of Contents Letter From Dept. Head Page 2
Student Spotlight Page 26-27
New Faculty Hires Page 3
Honoring James Parker Page 28
AI-CLIMATE Feature Page 4-11
Upcoming Events Page 29
Lind Hall Renovation Page 12-15
Invest in Computing Page 30
News Highlights Page 16-23
CS&E Donor Recognition Page 31
Alumni Accolades Page 24-25
Contact Information Back cover
Letter from Dept. Head Mats Heimdahl
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Welcome back! Since celebrating our 50th anniversary in 2020, the Department of Computer Science & Engineering has continued to innovate and take our research and teaching beyond the boundaries of the University. We kicked off 2023 with the opening of the newly-renovated student services center and faculty spaces in Lind Hall. This spring, our very own Shashi Shekhar led a team that secured a five-year $20 million National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute with a focus on climate-smart practices in agriculture and forestry. Additionally, we hired four new faculty members and two new instructors for the 202324 academic year. Thanks to the many generous individuals and organizations who have invested in our future over the years, we have continued to grow and thrive as the world around us changes. We thank all of you—our alumni community, donors, and friends; without you, our current and future successes would not be possible.
Zhutian Chen
New Faculty Hires
Assistant Professor Human-Centered Computing Enhancing human-data and human-AI interactions in both AR/VR environments.
Elizabeth Jensen
Bernardo Prado Teaching Specialist Computing Education CSCI 2033 - Elemental Computational Linear Algebra
Lecturer
Computing Education CSCI 3061 - Introduction to Computer Systems
Yogatheesan Varatharajah Assistant Professor
Data Science and Machine Learning
Harmanpreet Kaur Assistant Professor
Human-Centered Computing Making human-AI systems more effective and safe.
Machine learning that develops datadriven solutions to advance treatments for neurological diseases.
Qianwen Wang Assistant Professor
Human-Centered Computing Innovative visualization techniques with a particular emphasis on addressing biomedical challenges.
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We are proud to lead this nation-wide initiative to combat climate change under the guidance of Professor Shashi Shekhar. This $20m project is the first of its kind in this field.
Mats Heimdahl
Department Head
AI-CLIMATE: Curbing Climate Change with Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is having its moment. With the emergence of publicly-available tools like ChatGPT, the world is abuzz with the possibilities that AI can offer. The recent successes surrounding AI are a result of research and development over 60 years under a variety of names - deep learning, data mining, recommender systems, machine learning, etc. In the last decade, deep learning algorithms surpassed competing technologies in processing text, images, video, and audio with 10-20% better results. Around the same time as that significant breakthrough, computer scientists at the University of Minnesota began developing unique data mining and machine learning approaches to address one of the world’s most globally pressing issues: climate change. Led by Department of Computer Science & Engineering Professors Vipin Kumar (Principal Investigator) and Shashi Shekhar, the U of M received a five-year $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Expeditions program in 2010 for their project titled, “Understanding Climate Change: A Data Driven Approach”. This expedition went beyond the physical models traditionally used to understand climate. Instead, it used data mining to analyze global datasets over time from climate models, and in-situ and satellite-based sensors to identify patterns that could not be found using traditional climate modeling approaches.
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“This line of work started about 25 years ago in collaboration with scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),” said Kumar. “We have a long history that dates back to 1999 of building machine learning methodologies to discover new climate patterns, such as El-Nino, and monitor changes to the environment, like deforestation, on a global scale.”
(l-r) Bruce Erickson, David Mulla, Shekhar at biofuel crop study
Griffis Mesocosm Laboratory to Study Soil Emissions 6
“The 2010 Expedition grant was the biggest investment from the computer science community in climate change research at the time,” said Shekhar. “This study put the University of Minnesota at the forefront of the intersection between computer science and climate change research. By the end of this project, we knew there would be impacts in areas such as agriculture, environment, forests, renewable energy, and water resources. We also realized that the climate change data violated a key assumption underlying many data-driven methods, mainly that the future data is similar to the past data. Also, deep learning methods did not honor laws of nature - for example, water flows downhill, nearby places are similar, and mass is conserved. Other researchers echoed these concerns in a 2016 national workshop on exploring data science challenges and opportunities in understanding the interactions among food, energy, and water systems facing climate change and population growth. In other words,
popular machine learning techniques needed to be generalized to effectively address climate-change-related problems. That really laid the groundwork for our current grant.”
Land Mangement Practices map
Collaborative Geodesign Tool
Land-stewards discuss land-management
Shekhar is now the director of the new National AI Research Institute for Climate-Land Interactions, Mitigation, Adaptation, Tradeoffs and Economy (AI-CLIMATE). Kumar is the co-principal investigator, and CS&E faculty members Yao-Yi Chiang, Maria Gini, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, and Ju Sun are among its key leaders. This fiveyear $20 million institute is one of seven funded by NSF and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The AI-CLIMATE Institute will create and leverage novel AI methods to revolutionize the agriculture and forestry industries, prioritizing climate-smart practices in efforts to curb climate change by not only reducing emissions from, but also absorbing atmospheric carbon into land such as farms, forests, grasslands, and wetlands. “Even with the progress on electric cars and renewable energy, there are still residual emissions and cases where we have not found a strong alternative to fossil fuels,” said Shekhar. “In order to get to net-zero, we need sectors that are net-negative and absorb more greenhouse gasses than they emit. Agriculture and forestry is one of the more pragmatic areas where we can make some real progress. Right now, agriculture accounts for 10% of carbon emissions in the U.S. There are some practices that can reduce and even negate those emissions - down to negative 4%.”
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Farmers and foresters are already using many climate-smart practices, such as forest and fire management, cover crops, nutrient management, biochar, alley cropping, and restoration of forests, grasslands, and wetlands. However, they face a key question: which practice should be used where and when? AI can inform these decisions in many ways. First, AI improves the availability and quality of data, such as maps of soil health, moisture, and organic carbon. AI also recommends suitable climate-smart practices for specific places, creating a win-win for seasonal and long-term goals such as yield, soil health, water quality, and carbon sequestration. Lastly, AI improves the timing of actions such as watering and fertilizer application to reduce runoffs, erosion, and water quality impacts. Put simply, AI can help improve data accuracy and optimize land management decisions relating to climate-
CS&E Project Leaders
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Shashi Shekhar
Vipin Kumar
Yao-Yi Chiang
Director, Principal Investigator
Co-Principal Investigator, Research Co-lead
Senior Personnel
smart practices, reducing the workload for individual farmers and foresters. With promising preliminary results from their machine learning, which leverages data from sensors on the ground and satellites, the AI-CLIMATE Institute hopes to improve the accuracy and lower the cost of estimating how much carbon is sequestered in farms and forests. Additionally, implementing strategic climate-smart agriculture could increase revenue for rural areas of the U.S. “USDA has $3 billion to promote climate-smart commodities, plus another $20 billion in conservation programs,” said Shekhar. “If carbon markets came online, companies could buy carbon credits from farmers and foresters who are net-negative in their emissions.” Using the knowledge-guided machine learning (KGML) methods pioneered by Kumar and other researchers at the U of M, the Institute is uniquely positioned to create more sophisticated deep learning models that blend the laws of nature with artificial intelligence. “The U of M has been at the forefront of bringing this new class of machine learning that is grounded in scientific knowledge,” said Kumar. “Traditional machine learning models require large datasets and they are not very
Maria Gini
Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos
Ju Sun
Broadening Participation Co-lead
Executive Committee Member
Senior Personnel 9
good at making predictions in new scenarios they have not encountered before. Because KGML algorithms incorporate scientific knowledge, they can more easily generalize to unseen scenarios and can be trained with much smaller datasets that are typically available in scientific applications. These KGML algorithms are now being used in numerous scientific applications.” Additionally, the AI-CLIMATE Institute is improving current AI models by adapting them to tackle the challenges of spatialNSF presentation in the U.S. Senate room autocorrelation and spatial variability. The team has developed a spatial-variability-aware neural network where the edge weights are maps rather than numbers, enabling the technology to make more regionally specific recommendations. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for different regions of the planet, and advances in AI can help determine the best course of action using a variety of different factors for each individual farmer. “We want to develop decision support tools to inform farmers and foresters about which climate-smart practices they should apply in a specific area within a large farm or forest at any given time,” said Shekhar. “Large farms and forests will often have to mix-and-match practices depending on the data collected and analyzed. Our tools will allow them to make better decisions based on their specific situation.” Over the next five years, the Institute will work to refine their deep learning models, estimate carbon in forests and farms across the U.S., and ultimately create a decision support tool for farmers and foresters. This 10
monumental task will be made possible by key partnerships within the U of M - such as the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering (CSE), Minnesota Robotics Institute, CSE Data Science Initiative, College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences, and the Office of the Vice President for Research - as well as academic and industry collaborations - including Cornell University, Colorado State University, Purdue University, North Carolina State University, Delaware State University, the International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Indigo, and Land-O-Lakes. With the ultimate goal of mitigating the effects of climate change, the AI-CLIMATE Institute also aims to improve foundational AI methods with their novel approach, develop and educate a diverse AI workforce, and act as a collaboration nexus for different communities to exchange ideas in order to get more computer scientists involved in climate-smart computing. “We are extremely grateful for this opportunity, and especially that NIFA and NSF have trusted us with this responsibility,” said Shekhar. “We are also very thankful to the Department, College, and University of Minnesota in helping us get this up and running. If we are successful beyond our wildest imagination, hopefully this project will increase the amount of carbon sequestering in farms and forests in order to speed up our net-zero journey. It could have a huge societal impact. Plus, it could advance foundational AI so it can more effectively address the grand challenges facing our changing planet. We are excited by the opportunity to do something transformative.” Learn more about the AI-CLIMATE Institute at z.umn.edu/AICLIMATE.
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Lind Hall Renovation In January 2023, the Department of Computer Science & Engineering opened a new student services center in Lind Hall. The newly-renovated space is a one-stop-shop for students to get advising assistance, meet with instructors and teaching assistants, and study collectively with peers. The CS&E space also features the Diversity Wall, which highlights the computer science contributions of marginalized groups throughout history.
New Lind Hall interior 12
Front desk areas
Office spaces
Study spaces
Classrooms 13
Lind Hall Renovation Diversity Wall Highlights Vibrant History and Bright Future of Computer Science The Lind Hall Diversity Wall was spearheaded by CS&E Teaching Professor Shana Watters. The goal of the project was to commemorate the history of computer science and to highlight those whose contributions were silenced and not properly recognized throughout history. Watters explained that the inspiration for this wall aimed to represent people of all genders, races, and ethnicities who have contributed to computer science as a field. Watters and team worked closely with the Charles Babbage Institute, an institute of the University of Minnesota that supports the historical record keeping of computer science, to determine who to feature on the wall. The project itself took hundreds of hours of scouting through artifacts and putting names to faces. All of the time and effort helped to create an educational and relatable experience for the viewers. The wall aims to represent the true sense of the field with as many influential contributors as possible, especially those that may not have been represented in the past.
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News Highlights
Yousef Saad Wins SIAM John von Neumann Prize Professor Yousef Saad’s work on algorithms is especially impactful to the fields of sparse linear systems, eigenvalue problems, nonlinear equations, and graph algorithms. It can be applied to a wide range of problems in computational science and engineering, including quantum chemistry, material science, and data science. The 2023 John von Neumann Prize is the highest honor and flagship lecture of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
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Zhi-Li Zhang Leads Shared Automated Vehicles Research
Ju Sun Co-Led Project Using AI Technology for COVID-19 Diagnosis
Professor Zhi-Li Zhang is the lead investigator on a project focusing on shared automated vehicles (SAV) and their impact on transportation and society. Funded by the National Science Foundation, Zhang’s work will consider the impact of SAV networks on public transit, traffic congestion, and social inequities with a “smart cloud commuting system”.
Assistant Professor Ju Sun co-led a project that examines artificial intelligence’s effectiveness in diagnosing COVID-19. Sun and Christopher Tignanelli introduce federated learning, a machine learning technique, to the diagnosis of COVID-19 in chest x-rays. This process both improves the accuracy in diagnosis and eliminates some biases.
Fortune Magazine ranked the University of Minnesota’s M.S. in Data Science as the third best program in the nation for 2022. Data science is one of the fastest growing fields today with job openings for this role growing 480% since 2016, according to Glassdoor. Companies and organizations of all sizes and industries are seeking data-
savvy professionals that can create value from the massive amount of data available. To meet this steep demand, schools are unveiling more degree programs in data science. About 90% of data science program students find employment before they graduate.
Shana Watters Earns UMN Provost’s Unit Service Award Teaching Professor Shana Watters earned the University of Minnesota Provost’s Unit Service Award for her countless service contributions to the Department. Watters was nominated for her tireless efforts to increase diversity in the computer science undergraduate program, as well as her exceptional work with student groups. “I was so shocked when Mats (Heimdahl) sent me a note saying I had won this award,” said Watters. “I had no clue that I was even submitted for it. It was really an honor to think that so much of the work I have done behind the scenes is actually seen and recognized.” 17
Joseph Konstan to Lead $2 Million NSF Grant to Study Human-Centered AI for News Recommender Systems Professor Joseph Konstan will lead a new $2 million research project studying human-centered artificial intelligence for a shared news recommender system. The project titled, “A Research News Recommender Infrastructure with Live Users for Algorithm and Interface Experimentation”, is part of a $16.1 million investment from NSF’s CISE directorate.
Mohamed Mokbel’s Group Earns 2022 ACM SIGSPATIAL 10-Year Impact Award Professor Mohamed Mokbel’s research group earned the award for their 2012 paper, “Location-based and Preference-Aware Recommendation Using Sparse Geo-Social Networking Data.” Mokbel, Jia Bao (Ph.D., 2014), and Yu Zheng’s (Microsoft) work focused on providing recommendations for places to visit based on personal preference and current location.
CS&E Data Scientists Create First-of-its-Kind Lakes and Reservoirs Dataset Regents Professor Vipin Kumar led an interdisciplinary research team to publish a comprehensive global dataset of lakes and reservoirs, tracking changes over the last 30+ years. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and NASA, this first-of-it-kind dataset will inform environmental researchers on how lakes and reservoirs are impacted by climate change. 18
Dan Knights Earns 2023 Charles E. Bowers Faculty Teaching Award
Kelly Thomas Wins 2022 Outstanding Community Service Award The award is the highest honor the University gives to a staff member for their significant contributions and service to the community, including building University-community partnerships and programs that benefit our students, faculty, staff, and community partners. Thomas has helped the Department increase access for all in our undergraduate programs, undergraduate teaching assistantship positions, and student services positions through universal design practices.
Associate Professor Dan Knights earned the 2023 Charles E. Bowers Faculty Teaching Award from the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering. Established in 2000 by alumnus John Bowers (Physics, ‘76) in honor of his father, Professor Emeritus Charles E. Bowers, this award recognizes an outstanding CSE professor who has demonstrated exceptional interest and commitment to teaching. “It’s quite an honor,” Knights said. “I feel grateful for the opportunity to be a teacher. I’m grateful to the Department for nominating me. There are so many teachers that deserve to be recognized and I’m humbled to have gotten this recognition. There is a long list of teachers in the computer science department that put a lot of effort and time into teaching, and I’m lucky to learn from such a wonderful group.”
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Chancellor and Terveen Partner with Cisco to Fight Online Conferencing Bias Assistant Professor Stevie Chancellor and Professor Loren Terveen developed an AI chatbot to mitigate partiality during video conferences. The AI is designed to notice patterns throughout the meeting and prompt the host to self-correct when potential bias is detected. The team will use that data to further explore trends to make video conferencing more equitable. “Our Cisco collaborators have been supportive about what we’re doing while giving us the freedom to really investigate bias,” said Chancellor. “Through their work, they have given us insights into things they know from the industry perspective. Their ideas have helped us frame our overall contributions and shaped our ideas for the chatbot.”
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Computing Ethics Project Receives $400,000 Grant The GroupLens Lab and other Department faculty received a $400,000 grant from NSF. The project titled “Beyond the Individual: Community-Engaged Design and Implementation of a Framework for Ethical Online Communities Research,” focuses on the collection of big data in online communities. Led by Associate Professor Lana Yarosh, the work aims to bridge the gap between which data should and should not be used by researchers and the direct implications of this distinction.
Mohamed Mokbel Named Distinguished McKnight University Professor The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship program recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status. Recipients receive a research grant of $120,000 over five years to be used for expenditures related to the recipient’s research and scholarly activities. Mokbel will hold the title for as long as he remains employed at the University of Minnesota.
Maria Gini wins the 2022 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award Professor Maria Gini has been at the forefront of the field of robotics and multi-agent systems for many years, consistently bringing AI into robotics. This prestigious prize recognizes years of research and leadership in the field of robotics and multi-agent systems. She has been a consistent mentor and role model, deeply committed to bringing diversity to the field.
Joseph Konstan Earns Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award Professor and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science and Engineering Joseph Konstan earned the award for his 25 years of dedicated service and leadership in support of ACM’s mission and operation, and the advancement of ACM’s research, education, and practitioner communities. He served as the SIGCHI President from 2003-06. 21
Loren Terveen Earns ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award Professor and Associate Department Head Loren Terveen earned the Lifetime Service Award from the Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). Terveen served as president of SIGCHI from 2015-18 and has held a number of executive committee roles during his 25-year history with the organization. Terveen has also served in major conference and society leadership roles.
CS&E Graduate Wins 2022 Graduate School’s Best Dissertation Award Computer science Ph.D. graduate Xiaowei Jia won the 2022 University of Minnesota Graduate School’s Best Dissertation Award in the “Physical Sciences and Engineering” category. During his five-year stint working with Regents Professor Vipin Kumar, Jia played a key role in the development of the knowledge-guided machine learning paradigm, which was the central topic of his dissertation. 22
Karthik Desingh Lab Unpacks First Spot Robot from Boston Dynamics Led by Assistant Professor Karthik Desingh, the Robotics: Perception and Manipulation (RPM) Lab aims to build intelligent capabilities for the Spot Robot and future robots so they can sense, perceive, reason, and learn to manipulate objects in order to perform tasks in various domains (healthcare, climate change, environment conservation, etc.).
Stevie Chancellor Earns Amazon Grant for Machine Learning and Mental Health Project Assistant Professor Stevie Chancellor is the recipient of the Amazon Research Award for spring/summer 2022 for her project titled, “Collaborative and Socially Translucent Task Instructions for Emotionally Heavy and Subjective Annotation Tasks.” Her group will use this grant to improve machine learning techniques relating to mental health data. The team is dedicated to creating collaborative labeling interfaces for machine learning modeling while considering the subjectivity of distressing content.
Nikos Papanikolopoulos Receives Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education Professor Nikos Papanikolopoulos is a recipient of a 202122 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education, an honor given to exceptional candidates at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for excellence in graduate and professional education. Papanikolopoulos is a McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, as well as the Director of the Minnesota Robotics Institute (MnRI). He is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has been teaching at the University of Minnesota for more than 25 years. 23
Alumni Accolades CS&E Alum Builds Confidence in Uncertain Times Adolph Barclift (B.S., 2006) is the chief information security officer at Five Star Bank in Rochester, New York. Barclift leads the bank’s information and cybersecurity program. His job is to protect the company and its customers from internal and external security threats.
CS&E Alumni Ron Vetter Named Founding Dean of College of Science and Engineering at UNCW Alumni Ron Vetter (Ph.D., 1992) was named the founding dean of the College of Science and Engineering (CSE) at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Vetter is a professor of computer science at UNCW and also served as the associate provost for research and dean of the graduate school from 20132018. UNCW announced the founding of two new colleges in April 2023, including CSE. 24
Gang Fang Promoted to Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Computer science Ph.D. alumni Gang Fang was promoted to full professor in genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Fang first joined the Icahn School in 2012 after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. His Ph.D. thesis, titled “Discovering Combinatorial Disease Biomarkers”, won the 2013 University of Minnesota Graduate School’s Best Dissertation Award.
Wyatt Gustafson Founds Refr Sports App Wyatt Gustafson graduated with a B.S. in computer science in 2022. He is the co-founder of Refr Sports, an app that helps manage and schedule referees. He was named a finalist of the Carlson School of Management’s 2022 MN Cup.
Justin Levandoski Earns IEEE 10-Year Impact Award Justin Levandoski (Ph.D., 2011) recently earned the IEEE ICDE 2023 Ten-Year Influential Paper Award for his work on “Bw-Tree” during his time at Microsoft. He is currently the director of engineering at Google where he founded and now manages the Lake Analytics team on BigQuery. Levandoski was advised by Mohamed Mokbel during his Ph.D. program and focused on database systems. 25
Student Spotlight CS&E Undergraduate Team Advances to ICPC National Competition Team Golden Gophers qualified for the 2023 International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) national competition after placing fourth at the North Central North America Regional Contest. The Team Golden Gophers roster includes Department of Computer Science & Engineering undergraduates Chenxi Huang, Adam Wagner and Shicheng Zhou. They represented the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities at the ICPC North American Championships in Orlando, Florida, May 25-30.
(l-r) Shicheng Zhou, Chenxi Huang, and Adam Wagner 26
Malik Khadar Earns Honorable Mention for CRA’s Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award Malik Khadar was nominated by Professor Maria Gini, a member of the CRA board of directors. He was selected for his breadth of research contributions, including work with Professor Gini, Professor Paul Capel, and his honors thesis. In addition to his own work, Khadar is paying it forward by helping others get involved in the world of research.
Omonigho Egi Earns University of Minnesota Scholarship in Honor of George Floyd CS&E student Omonigho Egi received the 2022-23 University of Minnesota Scholarship in honor of George Floyd. She supports initiatives that introduce youth to STEM and increase diversity and inclusion for all. Her experience in activism influenced her decision to apply. “I actually co-led a protest in Woodbury after George Floyd was murdered,” she said. “[Receiving the scholarship] made me really proud that I’d done that work, because diversity and inclusion is so important to me. It’s at the core of my being. It’s never going to go away. I’m never going to stop caring about it.”
Congratulations to the 2023-24 CS&E Scholarship Recipients Athreyi Badithela William Cho Julia Christenson Rocío Cotta Antúnez Skyler Dargis Jasmine Joyce DeGuzman Alexandra Delacruz Rimika Dhara Max Gieseke Gabriel Girmay Robison
Jhanak Gupta Lauren Hagen Keezhan Hamasoor Vaibhav Jain Mohamed Khalil Pratham Khandelwal Heaven Lindenstruth Raji Mekonen Ruth Mesfin Kris Moe
Samyok Nepal Philip Nguyen Van Thanh Son Nguyen Dylan Paulson Akshay Peddi Kavya Prasad Sanjana Reddy Abigail Rossini Sanjali Roy James Sargsyan
Felipe Schmid Braz Clara Selchow Ava Smith Trek Stenger Minrui Tian Shridhar Vashishtha Caleb Yosef Alice Zhang
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Honoring James Parker CS&E Establishes James Parker Memorial Scholarship Fund
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The Department of Computer Science & Engineering hosted a special celebration of life for James Parker at the Campus Club in the Coffman Memorial Union in November of 2022. A beloved teacher, mentor, and friend, Parker passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on January 20, 2022. His family, friends, colleagues and students came together to share memories and reminisce about the legacy of their dear friend. The celebration included remarks from James’ father, Bruce Parker, and various friends and colleagues, followed by an open house and reception. “It was heartwarming to learn more about James as a teacher and mentor in the CS&E Department from his colleagues, TAs, and students,” said Bruce. “Thank you all for sharing your experiences with James. We miss him dearly
but hope the James Parker Memorial Scholarship Fund endowed from his assets will continue his legacy of supporting computer science undergraduates at the University of Minnesota for many years to come.” James’ teaching legacy was established early at the University of Minnesota when he taught undergraduate courses throughout his graduate studies. After earning his doctorate in 2017, he was hired as a lecturer and served in that role on the Twin Cities campus until his death. “James had the unique ability to really connect with students while commanding respect,” Department Head Mats Heimdahl said at the celebration. “Not many people can do that and he was excellent at his job. James is dearly missed and has left a void in the Department.”
Bruce Parker and Jeylin Yavas, first James Parker Memorial Scholar
Fall Colloquium Speakers 9/11 Yao-Yi Chiang (U of Minnesota) 9/18 Daniel D. Lee (Cornell Tech) 9/25 Junaed Sattar (U of Minnesota) 10/2 Albert Greenberg (Uber)
Upcoming Events THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE Monday, October 30, 2023 @ Malcom Yards Alumni discussion featuring GroupLens faculty titled, “A Human-Centered Approach to AI”
10/9 Jaydev Desai (Georgia Tech) 10/16 Sihem Amer-Yahia (Grenoble Alpes)
RESEARCH SHOWCASE
10/23 Dinesh Manocha (U of Maryland)
Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ The Graduate Hotel
10/30 Alon Halevy (Meta) 11/6 Qianwen Wang (U of Minnesota) 11/13 Klara Nahrstedt (U of Illinois Urbana–Champaign) 11/20 Marty Wolf (Bemidji State) 11/27 Isayas Adhanom (U of Minnesota) 12/4 Ben Schafer (U of Northern Iowa) All events are subject to change.
Bi-annual Department poster fair featuring keynote speakers Eugene Spafford and Ed Chi (Ph.D., 1999)
CODE FREEZE Thursday, January 11, 2024 @ Bruininks Hall Symposium on the best practices in software engineering and development with networking opportunities 29
Invest in the Future of Computing Thank you to the many alumni and friends who provide critical support for our students, faculty, research, and teaching. Gifts from benefactors like you help us maintain and build upon over 50 years of excellence. Your support helps to attract and retain world-renowned faculty, invest in ground-breaking research, enhance our academic programs, and ensure that our deserving and talented students receive scholarships and fellowships. Please consider a gift in support of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering today. There are multiple ways to give: • Make a one-time gift or pledge up to five years. •
Double your impact through employer matching programs. To see if your gift is eligible for an employer match, please visit: give.umn.edu/giving/making-gift/matching-gifts.
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Emily Strand
Consider a deferred gift, such as a bequest, annuity, life insurance, or qualified retirement plan assets. CS&E can provide you with more information regarding the many deferred gift options.
ecstrand@umn.edu 612-625-6798
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To learn more about giving opportunities and the impact of philanthropic support both within and beyond our community, please contact Emily Strand. Thank you for your support!
Senior External Relations Officer
Gifts of $1,000 or more
Thank You Donors
3M Company and 3M Foundation Adobe Inc Amazon.com Inc Bruce J. & Anne S. Parker Caitlin M. Race Catalyst Fund-Schwab Charitable David DeMarsh Dr. Lee-Chin H. & Chung-Wen Liu Ernst & Young LLP and Ernst & Young Foundation Facebook Google Grammarly, Inc.
InterDigital Communications, LLC John E. Collins John J. Feigal Jonathan R. Gross Joseph E. Gliniecki & Yolanda I. Garces Kalli M. Bennett & Steven C. Peterson Lee R Gordon Charitable Fund-Vanguard Char Lee R. Gordon Lishin Lin Luong B. Tran Michael Melville Microsoft Corporation
Optum Services Inc Peg & Charles R. Rich Peterson/Bennett Charitable Fund at Fidelity Quang Tran Inc Ralph & Grace Strangis Rynda N. Carlis Sandra L. Johnson Shyong K. Lam Shyong’s Giving Account at Schwab SIFT, LLC
Annual Donors
Leadership Donors
We recognize the generosity of those in our community who have invested in the future of the Department over the past year. Thank you so much for your support! Gifts listed are from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.
Aidan J. Boyle Allison D. Funk Amber Setter & Todd A. Kerkow Anonymous Donor Anonymous Donor Benevity Community Impact Fund Benjamin M. Weseloh Blackbaud Giving Fund CAF America Christine M. Sorenson Christopher J. & Brittany J. Sabol Connie B. Murray Connie K. & Mark P. Buechele Cresenthia A. Wilken & Steve Resman Daniel S. & Linda L. Poznanovic David & Barbara Chou David & Abby Rumsey David Nassimi Dominion Energy Edward H. McCall Emily W. & Joe Strand Eric J. Panken Frederick W. Roos George F. & Carolyn R. Heyne
Heather R. Kujak-Coon Howard B. Coleman IBM International Fdn James M. & Lynne M. Plasek Jessica F. Kennedy John P. & Lynn M. Little John W. Kerr Jon M. Rask Joseph M. Plasek Joshua E. & Lucia J. Byrne Julia I. Druck Justin & Becky Grammens Karen L. & Jared T. Sperry Kent B. Mein Kira J. Balentine Kristopher T. Lange Lee J. & Barbara Barrington Likun Zheng & Yu J. Gu Lloyd M. & Vera E. Cooke Lori L. Dietrich & Steven J. Piazza Mark Cohn & Beth Biersdorf Marlys A. Kohnke Medtronic & Medtronic Foundation Patrick & Michelle Hillmeyer Fund - Fidelity
Patrick A. & Michelle Hillmeyer Peter D. Clark & Molly McBeath Poznanovic Family Fund at Fidelity Charitable Rajesh B. Maheswaran Reza S. Sorour Richard J. & Nancy S. Hedger Richard J. Roiger Richard P. & Susan M. Merry Rick A. & Susan M. Knoll Robbi T. & Carmen M. Thompson Robin S. & Pamela M. Ehrlich Sally L. Palm Srihari Nelakuditi & Suneeta Kamana Steven R. & Roxanne M. Englund Stifel Charitable Fund Teofilo F. Gonzalez Tianshi Xu Tina & Christopher Lund Verlyn M. Johnson Vicraj T. & Jill A. Thomas Visa International Wallace E. & Virginia Flatgaard Wendie J. Ashmore & Timothy J. Salo
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