NEWS ARCHIVE Spring 2004
The News (headlines with text)
Gehrke Receives Provost's Award Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004. Professor Johannes Gehrke CS is one of five recipients of the Provost's 2004 Award for Distinguished Scholarship. Recognizing the scholarship and research efforts of newly tenured faculty, recipients of the Provost's Award are nominated by deans of the colleges, and awardees are selected by a committee of the provost and vice provosts. Professor Gehrke's research focuses on data mining and management, and the application of these techniques to the sciences. He is currently collaborating with researchers from Cornell's Astronomy department and the Arecibo Observatory, as well as Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology. Read more about the Provost's award: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/4.1.04/Provost_Awards.html.
Lee (CS '04) Places First in Research Contest Date: Monday, March 15, 2004. Eugene Lee CS '04 won first place in the Intel Student Research Contest which took place in Santa Clara, CA on March 12. Lee's project proposal, "Hardware Acceleration of the Edge-and-Point System for Interactive Rendering", was selected for funding by Intel in June 2003. His research was subsequently carried out here at Cornell, working with Kavita Bala CS and an Intel consultant. Lee competed with nineteen other finalists, including Sara Parker, Cornell MSE '04, who placed second in the contest.
BOOM '04 a Resounding Success! Date: Monday, March 15, 2004. Representing the efforts of scores of Cornell students, BOOM 2004, which took place on March 3, was the biggest ever. Over 60 projects were presented, via both the web and a separate poster session, encompassing a broad spectrum of research in digital technology. Project descriptions and links are available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/boom/2004sp/.
CUCS in the News Date: Friday, March 5, 2004. It was a newsworthy week for Computer Science students and faculty, as local media highlighted BOOM '04, Steve Marschner's Oscar winning research, and some expert computer advice from David Gries. BOOM '04, Cornell's Computing Fair, took place on March 3, and the event was featured in a story broadcast on News 10, a Syracuse-based television station. See the video! Steve Marschner graced the cover of the March 3 issue of The Ithaca Times, which featured an excellent story on Professor Marschner's research: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1395. And, in response to an inquiry in the March 4 Ithaca Journal's "Ask the Scientist", David Gries advises to reboot your computer when it freezes up!
Research Center to Focus on Living Systems Date: Friday, March 5, 2004. A groundbreaking ceremony will take place March 9 on the border of Israel and Jordan for the Bridging the Rift (BTR) Center, initiating an international research effort to compile the world's first databank of information about all living systems. Dubbed the Library of Life, the databank will amass information on the earth's living systems at scales of inquiry ranging from molecular (DNA sequencing) to global (geographic information systems). Data collection and cataloguing, as well making the data accessible over the Internet, will necessitate the development of new database systems and software. The Library of Life will be directed by Ron Elber (CS), and advised by Steven Tanksley (Plant Breeding), who first proposed the databank. The Cornell Press release, with more details about the new Center, can be read in it's entirety at: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/BTR.CUresearch.deb.html.
Kleinberg Looks at e-Influence Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2004. In a talk given at the recent AAAS meeting in Seattle, Professor John Kleinberg discussed the development of algorithms to solve a sociological problem: how to identify the most influential members of a network like the Internet. The obvious approaches of identifying those members with the most, or the shortest links can prove redundant, says Kleinberg, so he and his fellow researchers, Eva Tardos CS, and David Kempe, a former Cornell post-doc, devised a superior method. A summary of Kleinberg's talk can be found in the Cornell Chronicle: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/2.19.04/AAASKleinberg.html.
Pingali Named India Professor of CS Date: Friday, February 13, 2004. Professor Keshav Pingali, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Computer Science, has been named the first India Professor of Computer Science. Pingali, who joined the Computer Science faculty in 1986, is also the Associate Director of Cornell Theory Center. Professor Pingali will lecture periodically in India as a condition of this endowment. Pingali's research interests and professional highlights are featured at: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/2.12.04/endowed_profs.html
Marschner Receives NSF CAREER Award Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004. CS Professor Steve Marschner has been awarded an NSF Early Career Development Award for his proposal " Modeling the Properties and Appearance of Materials". This prestigious award supports the efforts of new faculty, and awardees are selected on the basis of "creative career-development plans that integrate research and education." Marschner, who joined the CS faculty in 2002, received his PhD from Cornell in 1998, working under Professor Don Greenberg in the Program for Computer Graphics.
Hopcroft Named IBM Professor Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004. Professor John Hopcroft, Department of Computer Science, has been elected to the IBM Professorship of Engineering and Applied Mathematics. Hopcroft, recipient of the A.M. Turing Award in 1986, served as the Joseph C. Ford Professor of Computer Science from 1985 to 1994 and the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering from 1994 to 2001. See the Chronicle's story on newly endowed professorships, including that of Professor Hopcroft: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/2.12.04/endowed_profs.html
Constable Renamed CIS Dean Date: Monday, February 9, 2004. Robert L. Constable, the first Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, created in 1999, has been reappointed for a second five-year term. The CIS faculty now comprises 53 faculty members, all of which hold joint appointments in CIS and some other academic department. When announcing the appointment, Provost Biddy Martin remarked that, while under Constable's leadership, CIS had "more than fulfilled its...mission of making computation and information sciences available to every discipline on campus", and that the university looks forward to the "continued success of the faculty" in upcoming years. Read more in the Cornell Chronicle's recent article: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/2.5.04/Constable_dean_CIS.html.
Marschner to Receive Academy Award Date: Monday, January 26, 2004. In a ceremony to be held on February 14, Professor Steve Marschner PhD '98 and his Stanford colleagues, Henrik Wann Jensen and Pat Hanrahan, will receive a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Read the press release at http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2003/04.01.12.html; for more about Marschner's research read the Cornell Chronicle article: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/1.22.04/Marschner-award.html.