News

09-30-13

Venkat Chandrasekaran, Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering, has won the Young Researcher Prize in Continuous Optimization at the Fourth Mathematical Optimization Society International Conference on Continuous Optimization (ICCOPT) for his paper entitled "Rank-sparsity incoherence  for matrix decomposition".

Tags: EE CMS Venkat Chandrasekaran

09-23-13

Mani Chandy, Simon Ramo Professor and Professor of Computer Science, and Leslie Lamport's paper entitled “Distributed Snapshots: Determining Global States of a Distributed System” has received the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Operating Systems (SIGOPS) Hall of Fame Award. The award recognizes the most influential Operating Systems papers that were published at least ten years in the past. [Past Awardees]

Tags: honors CMS Kanianthra Chandy

09-20-13

The Best Student Paper Award at the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Performance conference in 2013 was given to Caltech alumnus Minghong Lin (PhD CMS '13) for his paper entitled Joint optimization of overlapping phases in MapReduce.

Tags: honors CMS Adam Wierman alumni Minghong Lin

09-17-13

Professor Erik Winfree and colleagues have won a second $10 million award for research in molecular programming. "Computer science gave us this idea that many tasks can actually be done with different types of devices," Winfree says. For example, a 19th-century cash register and a 21st-century computer can both be used to calculate sums, though they perform the same task very differently. At first glance, writing a computer program and programming a DNA molecule may seem like very different endeavors, but "each one provides a systematic way of implementing automated behaviors, and they are both based on similar principles of information technology," Winfree says. This Expeditions in Computing Award will be used to take their work in molecular programming to the next level: from proof-of-principle demonstrations to putting the technology in the hands of users in biology, chemistry, physics, and materials science. [Caltech Release]

Tags: honors health CMS Erik Winfree

09-03-13

Last year a group of students in an engineering project course called Introduction to Multidisciplinary Systems Engineering, taught by Professor Melany Hunt, began planning for the Dynamic Augmented Living Environment (DALE), a joint SCI-Arc/Caltech entry in the 2013 Solar Decathlon competition. This type of multidisciplinary and collaborative experience is important for Caltech students, notes Hunt. "Engineering students need experiences in which they design, create, build, and test," she says. "They also should have opportunities in which they work as part of a team. Most engineering projects require multiple perspectives with input coming from a range of individuals with different expertise and vision." [Caltech Release] [LA Times Article]

Tags: energy MCE CMS Solar Decathlon Melany Hunt

06-20-13

Kevin Chen, an undergraduate student in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, working with Professor Alain Martin is the recipient of the 2013 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Kevin is interested in research in asynchronous VLSI systems and is working with Professor Martin to develop automated synthesis tools for such systems. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to the engineering student with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Alain Martin Kevin Chen

06-14-13

The student winners of the 2013 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at a special luncheon with the Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis family.

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Tags: APhMS EE honors GALCIT John Dabiri CMS Frances Arnold Kanianthra Chandy Guoan Zheng Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Axel Scherer Janna Nawroth Pedro Coelho Michael Olson James McKone Harry Gray Aditya Rajagopal Changhei Yang

06-12-13

Fernando de Goes, a graduate student in Computing and Mathematical Sciences working with Mathieu Desbrun, has received a Google U.S./Canada PhD Student Fellowship for his research on the development of numerical tools for computer graphics and computational physics based on discrete differential geometry. He is one of only 15 winners in the United States and Canada. The Google Fellowship program supports innovative university research in computer science. [Google Research Blog] [List of winners] 

Tags: honors CMS Mathieu Desbrun Fernando de Goes

06-11-13

Katrina Ligett, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Economics, is one of seven early-career faculty who have received 2013 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowships. Professor Ligett works on algorithms, particularly online algorithms, algorithmic game theory, and data privacy. The goal of the fellowship is to support academics in the field of computer science who are exploring breakthrough, high-impact research that has the potential to help solve some of today’s most challenging societal problems. [Learn More]

Tags: honors CMS Katrina Ligett

06-03-13

Computer Science Senior Judy Mou has been working with K. Mani Chandy and Julian Bunn to develop an Android phone and tablet application that could be used to keep communities informed about crisis situations, such as local earthquakes, fires, and pollution hazards. Her application, called a situational awareness application, combines this hazard information with dynamically updated, individualized content, such as traffic on the user's commute, campus events, or news feeds that the user has subscribed to. "The test-case for the application that she is building is whether her classmates and housemates use the application," Chandy says. "She knows that she is building something valuable, and she's excited about it. That's one of the things I like best about working with her." [Learn More]

Tags: research highlights CMS Kanianthra Chandy Julian Bunn Judy Mou