Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Stanford U Prof Gets ACM-Infosys Award in Computing Sciences
4/23/2008
Infosys Technologies and the Association for Computing Machinery have given the first ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in Computing Sciences to Daphne Koller, Ph.D., a leading researcher and student mentor at Stanford University. The purpose of the newly established award is to recognize individuals for their contributions to the field of computer science.Koller's own research contributions to computer science and the field of AI have been enormous, but her thought leadership in the advancement of computer science as a field of study and the fostering of innovation have also set her apart. Notably, she has involved undergraduate students in computer science research, expanding their learning experiences far beyond the textbook problem sets that lead only to predetermined answers.
Koller, who has been with the computer science department at Stanford since 1995, told CT about some of her research leading to the award:
"It's a particular way of weaving together two strands of work in the field of AI -- the strand that tries to model the world as a complicated network of interrelated entities ... and the field of probabilistic or statistical methods ... The work that I'm being given the award for is a way of bringing the two together -- and allowing reasoning with noisy and uncertain data, and the application of learning techniques from large, uncertain data sets in a way that also allows you to deal with complex systems."
Koller talked about her efforts to include undergraduates in computer science research:
"Fairly early on it occurred to me that we were very impoverished in not having some of the younger students, the undergraduate students, involved in our research. We all had thriving research groups comprised of Ph.D. students and postdocs, and those are the people who might train the next generation, but we weren't ourselves training the young generation in the creative thinking processes that go into research ... At that time I went to the department and said, 'I really think we need a research program for undergraduates.' ... We've had about 300 students go through the program so far [since 2001], many of whom ended up going into research in corporate environments, and some to Ph.D. programs and subsequently sometimes to advanced R & D positions with companies, and sometimes even to academia."
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- RIAA Outsources Fingering of Students Who Share Music Illegally
The RIAA is outsourcing the hunt for music thieves. Its largest target currently is those who operate from within colleges and universities, a move that has piqued the attention of Educause.
- Microsoft Expands Education Footprint in Asia Pacific Region
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced new partnerships to extend accessibility and computer literacy in the Asia Pacific region during a speech in Jakarta at a government leader gathering earlier this week.
- IT Struggling Over Security, Compliance
IT pros are having a hard time balancing security, software patch management and IT auditing with a host of other duties, according to a survey released Monday by Shavlik Technologies.
- Toronto College Upgrades Network with Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Links
Toronto-based George Brown College has gone public about its deployment of six BridgeWave GE60 wireless links to upgrade its campus-wide network.
- Gates Highlights R&D at CES08, Unveils Microsoft Touch Wall
Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates spent a lot of time Wednesday talking about "empowering the workers" at the Microsoft's 12th annual CEO Summit 2008 in Redmond, WA, where he gave a keynote speech. However, Gates wasn't talking about political revolutions or even pay raises for office workers before the CEO crowd. Instead, he was referring to new software technologies that can better enable collaboration, social networking and decision-making on the job.
- Vista Vulnerability Study Puts Microsoft on Defensive
Microsoft and some independent security researchers had the blogosphere buzzing Wednesday over a series of denunciations after one company claimed that the Vista operating system was more vulnerable to malware and other exploits than previous operating systems.
