Signorile Receives Grant For Robotics Course

Robert Signorile
The Boston College University Council on Teaching has awarded Professor Robert Signorile a 2007-2008 Teaching, Advising, and Mentoring (TAM) grant. The purpose of this grant is to develop materials for an introductory course in computing using personal robots and to purchase 15 personal robots for the course.

Dr. Pavlopoulou Joins CS Department

Dr. Christina Pavlopoulou has joined the Computer Science Department as a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Prof. David Martin.

Pavlopoulou received her B.S. degree from University of Athens, Greece, Department of Informatics in 1995, her M.S. degree from the Department of Computer Science, Purdue University in 1998 and her Ph.D. degree from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University in 2007.

Dr. Pavlopoulou's research interests include all aspects of Computer Vision with emphasis on statistical and machine learning techniques.

EagleEyes Receives 2007 da Vinci Award

Gips and Eagleeyes

The EagleEyes Project has been named a 2007 winner of the da Vinci Award by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for their outstanding design innovations aimed at helping the disabled overcome barriers and further empower all people. The winners will be honored Friday, September 28th at the 2007 da Vinci Awards gala at the Ritz Carlton in Dearborn, Michigan.

Pictured here: EagleEyes co-creator Prof. Jim Gips demonstrates a new application to Mike Nash.

CS Department Names New Chairperson

Howard Straubing
 
The Computer Science Department announced last week the appointment of a new chairperson, Prof. Howard Straubing. Straubing replaces Prof. Robert Muller, who held the position for six years.

Straubing, who specializes in the theory of computation, graduated from the University of Michigan, and received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.  He was a member of the faculty of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, before joining Boston College in 1984.

Straubing's appointment as chairperson began on June 1, 2007.

Phil Temples Awarded 2007 Community Service Award

Phil Temples receiving 2007 Community Service Award

Phil Temples, a computer systems administrator in the Computer Science Department was honored with the prestigious 2007 Community Service Award at a recognition dinner on May 23, 2007. University President William P. Leahy, S.J. and Thomas Keady, Vice President for Governmental Community Affairs presented the award to Temples at a banquet with approximately 100 invited guests, university officials and other honorees in attendance.

[See also: Temples Seeks to 'Open Lives' of Disabled]

 

Hao Jiang Joins Computer Science Department

Hao Jiang

The Computer Science Department is pleased to announce the hiring of Dr. Hao Jiang to a tenure-track position within the department.

Hao Jiang obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is a recipient of the Governor General's Gold Medal. Dr. Jiang was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia, and an associate researcher at Microsoft Research Asia. His research interests include computer vision, multimedia, graphics and artificial intelligence.

Profs. Martin and Yu Awarded NSF CAREER Grants

David Martin
Stella X. Yu The department is happy to announce that Professors David Martin and Stella Yu were recently awarded NSF CAREER gransts. The NSF CAREER program is a highly competitive program intended to support the research careers of promising young scientists. Professor Martin will use his grant to focus on mid-level vision (see http://vision.bc.edu/~dmartin/MidLevel/). Professor Yu's grant will support her interdisciplinary work in art and vision (see http://www.cs.bc.edu/~syu/artvis/).

[left: Prof. David Martin; right: Prof. Stella Yu]

Best Jobs In America

Prospects for computer science majors are better than ever, according to a new MONEY Magazine and Salary.com report that rates careers on salary and job prospects. [Details]