Spotlight
Research
Aug 2006 – Understanding Events and Beliefs Expressed in Text
Prof. Janyce Wiebe will lead research in a University Affiliate Research Center funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The center has been awarded $2.4 million over the next three years to develop accurate and robust techniques for extracting and summarizing information about events and beliefs from text.
Jan 2006 – Center for Modeling Pulmonary Immunity
Prof. Panos K. Chrysanthis and Prof. Alexandros Labrinidis will lead the
bioinformatics effort in the recently established Center for Modeling
Pulmonary Immunity. The center was established in September 2005,
from a $9 million contract from the National Institutes of Health,
and is a joint effort between the University of Pittsburgh (School of
Medicine and School of Arts & Sciences), Carnegie Mellon, and the
University of Michigan.
Aug 2005 – Parsing Arabic Dialects
This summer, Prof. Rebecca Hwa, along with researchers from Columbia University, the University
of Maryland and the University of Amsterdam, is participating in an NSF-sponsored workshop on Parsing
Arabic Dialects. Students from Stanford University, The University of Pittsburgh, Johns Hopkins
University and Georgia Tech are also participating in the project.
Aug 2005 – Optoelectronic Computing Research Group Installs Clean Room
The newest addition to the research facilities in Sennot Square is a 300 square foot, class 1000
clean room facility in the fifth floor optical computing lab. Dr. Chiarulli and Dr. Levitan use
this facility in their research on high-speed optical and electronic data links for chip-to-chip
and network-on-chip applications.
June 2005 – Kurt VanLehn Presents LearnLab in D.C.
Kurt VanLehn, a professor in Pitt's Department of Computer Science and codirector of the
Pitt-Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC), represented
the University at the June 21 Exhibition of the Coalition for National Science Funding in
Washington, D.C.
Faculty
2008 – Alexandros Labrinidis
Congratulations to our Assistant Professor, Alexandros Labrinidis, who is the recipient of a 2008 NSF Career Award for his work, "CAREER: User-Centric Data Management."
2008 – Sangyeun Cho
Congratulations to our Assistant Professor, Sangyeun Cho, on receiving a 2008 A. Richard Newton scholarhip.
2008 – Rebecca Hwa
Congratulations to our Assistant Professor, Rebecca Hwa, who is the recipient of a 2008 NSF Career Award for her work, "CAREER: Robust Parsing for New Domains and Languages."
Dr. Liz Marai joined the Computer Science Department as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2007. Dr. Marai received her BS in Computer Science and Engineering from the "Politehnica" University in Bucharest, Romania. In May of 2007, she received her PhD from Brown University.
2005 – Daniel Mossé
Dr. Daniel Mossé became a full Professor in the Computer Science Department in 2004. Here, he
discusses how he came to the department, his love for teaching, and his (so far) fruitless
campaign to squeeze more time into a 24-hour day.
2005 – Sangyeun Paul Cho
Sangyeun Cho joined the Department of Computer Science in the fall of 2004. He received his BS
in computer engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea in 1994, and his PhD in
computer science from the University of Minnesota in 2002.
2004 – Panos Chrysanthis
Dr. Panos K. Chrysanthis officially became the ninth full Professor in our Department on
1.1.2004. He is the co-director of the the Advanced Data Management Technologies (ADMT)
lab which focuses on innovative theories, paradigms, and applications in network-centric
data management.
2003 – Rebecca Hwa
Dr. Rebecca Hwa joined the Department of Computer Science in the fall of 2003. She
received her BS in Computer Science and Engineering from UCLA in 1993, and her PhD in
Computer Science from Harvard University in 2001. Her research is in the areas of artificial
intelligence and natural language processing.
Alumni
2005 – Ras Bodik
Ras Bodik got his PhD at Pitt in 2000 under the guidance of Rajiv Gupta and Mary Lou Soffa.
He then went on to work as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. After two
happy years in Madison, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where he is now
a tenure-track assistant professor. He has won the ACM SIGPLAN Doctoral Dissertation Award and
the NSF CAREER Award, as well as two teaching awards at the University of Wisconsin.
2005 – Mary Lou Soffa
After being recruited by a number of other universities during her outstanding academic career,
Professor Mary Lou Soffa finally succumbed to an offer — a very attractive offer. She decided
to leave her faculty position in the Department of Computer Science at the University of
Pittsburgh, effective September of 2004, to assume the roles of Owen R. Cheatham Professor
and Chair of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Virginia.
2004 – Gerard A. Pompa
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mr. Pompa received his BS in computer science and mathematics
and his MS in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981 and 1987. He was
employed by Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the Nuclear Service Integration and Service
Technology Divisions from 1981 to 1987 in software engineering. He designed and implemented
software systems for real-time control robotic equipment and other devices for inspecting and
repairing nuclear power plant components.
2003 – D. Raja
D. Raja is the co-founder of Computer Enterprises, Inc., better known as CEI. Originally
from Bangalore, India, Raja underwent his schooling in Chennai. He holds an undergraduate
degree in Electrical Engineering from Anna University, India. Raja moved to the United States
from India to obtain his M.S. in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. While he
was still pursuing his Masters, Raja began his professional career as a software engineer.
He worked for over five years at Formtek, a Lockheed Company, where he quickly scaled the
ranks from software engineer to manager of the software department.