Duke Computer Science Professor Ronald Parr was recently elected as a new Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) for significant contributions to reinforcement learning, including the development of foundational hierarchical, least-squares, factored, and feature selection methods. Founded in 1990, AAAI's Fellows Program highlights individuals who achieve unusual distinction in AI. New Fellows were honored at a special awards ceremony during the recent AAAI 2023 Conference.

Duke CS PhD students Haiyang Huang and Yingfan Wang won the John M. Chambers Software Award from the Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for their Python package PaCMAP, based on a project with Duke Professor Cynthia Rudin and Assistant Professor Yaron Shaposhnik from University of Rochester's Simon School. The tool's code performs dimension reduction for data visualization, allowing us to see inside high-dimensional datasets by projecting them to 2D.

Three Duke Computer Science students received awards from the Computing Research Association (CRA) for Outstanding Undergraduate Research in 2023. Selected as a Finalist, Zeyu Shen works on the intersection of algorithms, machine learning, and social science with Kamesh Munagala and Brandon Fain. Also selected as a Finalist, Rui Xin works on interpretable machine learning with an emphasis on sparse models with Cynthia Rudin and Margo Seltzer. Awarded an Honorable Mention, William He works on circuit complexity with Ben Rossman and graph algorithm design with Debmalya Panigrahi. Congratulations to all on these prestigious national awards!

Duke Computer Science Professor Debmalya Panigrahi and colleagues give the first improvement in the all-pairs max-flow, or APMF, problem in over 60 years.

Duke CS faculty (including Kartik Nayak, Xiaowei Yang, and Fan Zhang) and students had 5 research papers at the recent flagship ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) Nov. 7-11. Michael Reiter and collaborators won the 2012 Test-of-Time Paper Award, and Bruce Maggs and collaborators won the Best Paper Honorable Mention. Ashwin Machanavajjhala and Neil Gong served as Program Committee Track Chairs. Current/former students/paper authors included: Waqar Aqeel, Jinyuan Jia, Shihan Lin, Hongbin Liu, Yupei Liu, and Rui Xin.

Duke CS-Economics double major Qi Xuan Koo won a Rhodes Scholarship, based on high academic achievement, personal integrity, and leadership potential. A Karsh International Scholar from Malaysia, Khoo researched developing ML predictive models for COVID infection based on wearables data, assisted professors investigating US Medicare fraud, analyzed county COVID-19 policies, and built an NC data pipeline for domestic violence shelters while at Duke. He's also a Woodman Scholar at Duke Economic Analytics Lab and an Arete Effective Altruism Fellow. Congratulations!

Assistant Professor Pardis Emami-Naeini joined Duke Computer Science in September. An engaged educator who's committed to helping young researchers find their own groove in the fast-changing world of computer science, she says "As I’m teaching, I’m learning.” Dr. Emami-Naeini looks forward to mapping new territories at the intersection of her research priorities: people, technologies, and policies.

Bruce Donald, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and professor in biochemistry and colleagues developed RESISTOR, an algorithm that uses protein structure-based computational design to predict how mutations in enzymes will affect a drug’s efficacy, especially when treating cancer. Cancer tumors often develop resistance to treatment, but this algorithm can predict those resistance mutations in advance, which could lead to better drug development and treatment plans.

While advancing the science of data and leveraging its multidisciplinary nature, new faculty member Jian Pei is also a fierce advocate of making sure the playing field is level for everyone.

Duke CS and Biochemistry Associate Professor Alberto Bartesaghi and a research team including partners from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) received a federal grant of >$27M over 5 years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Bartesaghi co-directs the Structural Biology Core at the newly formed Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology (DCHSB), leading the development of computational techniques to enable the visualization of dynamic HIV-antibody assemblies at molecular resolution.

Merrell Patrick, who helped establish the Department of Computer Science at Duke, passed away recently. Duke University flags will be lowered today in his honor.

Duke CS Associate Professor Sudeepa Roy has won the 2022 VLDB Early Career Research Contribution Award for her work on helping users to understand query results, and on generating explanations for the underlying computations. This award specifically recognizes a researcher who has demonstrated database research impact through a specific technical contribution of high significance since completing their PhD degree. The VLDB endowment awards ceremony and presentations will be held on Sept. 8, 2022 at the 48th International Conference on Very Large Databases in Sydney, Australia (and hybrid), where Sudeepa will give a talk titled "Toward Interpretable and Actionable Data Analysis with Explanations and Causality."

Duke CS undergrads Jenny Huang, Gaurav Parikh, and Albert Sun won the American Statistical Association (ASA) Data Challenge Expo this year! Coached by Cynthia Rudin and Lesia Semenova, the students' paper on Public Transit Policies to Promote Equitable Urban Mobility suggested that urban mobility and unequal commute data can guide policymakers to enact appropriate policies that enhance the accessibility of public transportation for everyone. Huang and Parikh presented their research at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) on August 7 in Washington, DC. Congratulations!

Duke CS Assistant Professor Kartik Nayak and Yale CS Assistant Professor Fan Zhang received several grants from the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the open-source blockchain technology that powers Ethereum. These grants will fund research to advance the Ethereum ecosystem: Disentangling Transaction Privacy and Consensus in Ethereum (Nayak and Zhang); Catching the ephemeral: Understanding blockchains through mempool data (Zhang and Nayak); and Improving Ethereum Communication Efficiency through Accountability and Flexible Quorums (Nayak).

CS+, our popular 10-week summer research program exclusively for Duke undergrads, recently concluded with an in-person symposium. CS+, Data+, Code+ and Climate+ Program participants also presented their creative and innovative research projects in a poster session. Over 100 students participated in the 2022 + programs, 49 posters were displayed and > 2/3 of students participating in + programs study CS.

NSF awarded Duke a $1.5 M grant to advance cybersecurity efforts as part of the $25.4 M Secure and Trustworthy Computing (SaTC) "Frontier" research program. With Indiana University as the lead institution, James B. Duke CS/ECE Distinguished Professor Mike Reiter is PI and Yale's Fan Zhang is Co-PI of the multi-institution and multi-disciplinary Center for Distributed Confidential Computing (CDCC) project at Duke. Researchers' goal is to provide solutions for protecting data-in-use, like training ML models on private data and across cloud and edge systems.

NSF awarded a new STEM Education Postdoctoral Research Fellowship $1M+ grant over three years to The Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education. Duke Professor of the Practice of CS and Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies Dr. Nicki Washington is the PI, and co-PIs are Dr. Shani Daily, Professor of the Practice of ECE and CS and Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, James B. Duke Distinguished Sociology Professor. With three postdocs supporting Duke-related activities, AiiCE-PRF's goal is to increase the number of postdocs from historically underrepresented groups in computing and the number of postdocs performing identity-inclusive computing education research.

Associate Professor Ashwin Machanavajjhala, PhD student Yuchao Tao, and their collaborators at HKUST (including former Duke CS PhD grad Ke Yi), won the Best Paper Award in Data Management at SIGMOD 2022. Professor Pankaj Agarwal and collaborators won the Test-of-Time PODS Paper Award. Overall, Duke CS faculty and PhD students presented 7 research papers at the ACM SIGMOD PODS 2022 conference.

Dr. Cynthia Rudin was nominated as a 2021-22 Chron15 Pioneer. Duke Chronicle readers identified leaders, pioneers and icons that make positive change in the community. Rudin, also the director of Duke's Interpretable ML Lab, was selected for her innovative research and design of interpretable forms of AI, and her approach to ML which has generated breakthrough results. Rudin's national recognition includes the 2021 AAAI Squirrel AI Award and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Congratulations to all recipients of the 2022 undergraduate student awards!

Congratulations to Dr. Cynthia Rudin, Duke Earl D. McLean, Jr. Professor of CS, ECE, Statistics, Math, Biostats & Bioinformatics on being named a 2022 Bass Chair. One of only four Duke Professors selected for this honor, Rudin is recognized for demonstrating excellence in both teaching and research.

Professors Nicki Washington and Shani Daily were selected as 2021 co-recipients of the Dean’s Diversity Award, which recognizes how diversity drives excellence in research, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service. Their leadership of the Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program and the Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE) is transforming participation and perspectives in computing.

Robert Calderbank, Ph.D., Charles S. Sydnor Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Math, ECE, and Physics; Director of the Rhodes Information Initiative, and Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science and Society, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy was founded in 1780 to honor excellence and national leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.

Three Duke CS students received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships: Jerry Liu, who also just received the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, worked with Dr. Cynthia Rudin and will pursue a PhD in computational mathematics at Stanford. ECE-CS student Alex Oesterling worked with Dr. David Smith and Dr. Guillermo Sapiro, and will pursue a PhD in computer science at Harvard, focusing on algorithmic fairness and trustworthy AI. Andy Zhang, whose CS mentor was Dr. Bruce Donald, will pursue a PhD program in applied mathematics at Princeton. Congratulations to all!

Aditya Paul, Duke Computer Science/ECE double major with a Math minor, won the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. This national award is based on academic merit and supports students who show promise of being part of the next generation of research leaders. Paul plans to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering, conduct research in quantum information systems and algorithms, and teach at a university. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Duke Computer Science, ECE, Statistics, Biostats and Math Professor Cynthia Rudin who was recently elected as a new Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) for groundbreaking and pioneering work on interpretable machine learning and trustworthy AI. New Fellows were honored at a special virtual ceremony during the AAAI 2022 Conference. Rudin also received the 2022 AAAI Squirrel AI Award for pioneering socially responsible AI and the prestigious 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship which supports her work to promote transparent, interpretable, socially responsible AI with an open-ended funding award.

Duke CS/Math Professor Bruce Donald's students use TikTok videos in his CS230 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science class to illustrate complex mathematical and computer science concepts from Turing’s halting theory or computability to transcendental numbers. CS major Rhea Tejwani said, “In class, we were learning about a lot of big ideas and complex problems, so trying to compress them into a clear and concise 60-second video really helped me understand those topics.” The students' CS230 TikToks now have over 17K views.

Duke Associate Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, CS, Math, and Statistics Anru Zhang is the recipient of the 2022 Tweedie Award from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Recognized as a leading early career researcher in statistical science with this prominent and prestigious international award, Zhang will present the Tweedie New Researcher Invited Lecture at the upcoming 2022 IMS New Researchers Conference. Congratulations!

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Bruce Donald, his students, and collaborators at the University of Connecticut discovered how a single mutation in MRSA has such a large impact on antibiotic resistance. Now they can use computational strategies to develop better drugs to fight Staph infections.

Duke ECE, Computer Science, BME, and Math Professor Guillermo Sapiro has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), among the highest professional honors to be accorded an engineer. He was recognized for 3 decades of transformative contributions to the theory and practice of imaging which have significantly affected a wide range of fields. Congratulations!

Governor Roy Cooper honored Duke Computer Science Professors Dr. Shani Daily and Dr. Nicki Washington, among others as NC Black STEM leaders during Black History Month for their critical, innovative work focused on helping their communities. Cooper said that NC is a stronger state thanks to the contributions of many talented Black leaders in STEM fields and that "As we celebrate their achievements, we must also work to break down barriers."

Duke Computer Science doctoral student Zhi Chen won an award in the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences (SPES) and Quality and Productivity (Q&P) 2022 Student Paper Competition of the American Statistical Association. The paper was entitled "How to See Hidden Patterns in Metamaterials with Interpretable Machine Learning" and co-authors include Duke professors Cynthia Rudin and Cate Brinson, and Caltech collaborators Alexander Ogren and Professor Chiara Daraio. Zhi is advised by Professor Cynthia Rudin.

Duke University Distinguished Professor of New Technologies and Professor of Computer Science, Economics, and Philosophy Vincent Conitzer and coauthor Professor Tuomas Sandholm of CMU received the 2022 IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award for their highly-cited, seminal paper entitled "Computing the optimal strategy to commit to." Their paper set the basis for computing optimal leader strategies in security games, leading to impactful work with real-world applications and establishing a strong mechanism design community. Congratulations!

Duke University's 3C (Cultural Competence in Computing) Fellows Program was awarded 2022 Program of the Year by The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD), an American Association of Engineering Education (ASEE)-affiliated conference. Director and Professor Nicki Washington, PhD; Professor Shaundra Daily, PhD; and PhD Student Cecilé Sadler will receive this award during the CoNECD 2022 conference in February. 3C Fellows is a cohort-based professional development program that helps computing faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and professionals learn more about identity, intersectionality, racism, bias, and discrimination with a goal of making computing more equitable and inclusive.

Bruce Donald, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Math and Chemistry and professor of biochemistry, has received a five year, $2.9M Established Investigator Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) for computational and experimental studies of protein structure and design. “This project concentrates on two interlocking themes: protein structure and design,” says Donald. “The design of new therapeutics can alleviate mortality, morbidity, and human suffering.”

Duke’s Center for Computational Thinking (CCT) enables computational education by incorporating computer-related content into courses throughout the university. Duke Computer Science Chair Jun Yang says that exposure to computational thinking is important for all students “not just to prepare our students to survive in this new world, but to help them to lead.”

Dr. Helen Li, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Duke University, has been named an ACM Fellow for her contributions to neuromorphic computing and deep-learning acceleration. As a fellow, Dr. Li joins a select group of the top 1% of ACM professional members recognized for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology. ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest and most prestigious society of computing professionals.

Two optional MS concentrations ‒ Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Cybersecurity ‒ are coming soon in Fall 2022!

Three Duke Computer Science students received awards from the Computing Research Association (CRA) for Outstanding Undergraduate Research in 2022. Selected as a Runner-up, Norah Xinyu Tan worked on quantum computing/information theory, coding theory, and signal processing with Robert Calderbank and Jianfeng Lu. Awarded an Honorable Mention, Jerry Liu is interested in incorporating domain knowledge into black box deep learning methods, including work in computer vision and NLP with Cynthia Rudin. Also awarded an Honorable Mention, Zeyu Shen works on algorithmic problems such as algorithmic fairness and MCMC algorithms with Kamesh Munagala and Holden Lee. Congratulations to all on these prestigious national awards!

Duke Computer Science Professor Dr. Nicki Washington is developing a new formula for equality in the tech industry: Disrupting the policies, practices and points of view standing in the way of marginalized computer science students. What if we could use computer science to combat systemic racism?

Duke CS and Physics major Yasa Baig received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, awarded to exceptional American students to pursue graduate studies in the UK. Duke President Vincent Price said that "This great honor reflects [his] extraordinary contributions here on campus and beyond,” as well as his commitment to service, innovation, and principled leadership. Baig also received the Goldwater Scholarship earlier this year. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science, ECE, Statistics, and Biostats Professor Cynthia Rudin won the 2022 $1M Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). This award recognizes Rudin for her “pioneering scientific work in the area of interpretable and transparent AI systems in real-world deployments, the advocacy for these features in highly sensitive areas such as social justice and medical diagnosis, and serving as a role model for researchers and practitioners.” Congratulations!

Dr. Bing Xie, Duke CS PhD '17 (advisor Professor Jeff Chase) was selected by the IEEE Computer Society as a winner of the IEEE-CS Technical Consortium on High Performance Computing (TCHPC) Early Career Researchers Award for Excellence in High Performance Computing (HPC). This award recognizes her outstanding, influential, and potentially long-lasting HPC contributions. An HPC research scientist at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Dr. Xie's computer systems research results have been presented at multiple major conferences and published in many journals.

Ingrid Daubechies, Duke Distinguished Professor of Math and ECE was recently profiled in the NYT Magazine. Her pioneering study of mathematical structures known as wavelets facilitated the use of data compression in electronic apps like smartphones and MRI machines. She is also renowned as a barrier-breaking role model for successful female mathematicians. Duke CS, ECE, Statistics, and B&B Professor Cynthia Rudin calls her "the deus ex machina adviser" and Daubechies' partner is Duke CS Professor Robert Calderbank.

Duke recently received 2 large grants totaling almost $12 M from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) as part of its new Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium. Duke Statistical Science, Math, and Computer Science Professor Sayan Mukherjee is among the leaders of the Duke Predictive Modeling Center. One of seven such centers, it recently received a $3.2 M award.

Duke CS Assistant Professor Danyang Zhuo received an Amazon Research Award for his "Push-Button Verification of Software Middleboxes" research, which used software verification techniques to ensure the correctness of software middleboxes, such as NATs, firewalls, and load balancers. Zhuo and 25 other recipients from universities in 11 countries met rigorous criteria as to scientific content, creativity, and potential to impact both the research community and society. Award recipients have access to more than 250 Amazon public datasets and use of AWS AI/ML services and tools.

Duke CS, Biochem, and ECE Associate Professor Alberto Bartesaghi's lab recently received a 4-year $1.3M grant from NIH to design computational tools to improve the resolution of cryo-electron tomography and extend its applicability to a wider class of biomedically relevant targets. The researchers' methods will help accelerate biomedical research, providing more opportunities for the development of new medical treatments. Dr. Bartesaghi said, "The new methods will allow, for the first time, the visualization of protein structures at unprecedented level of detail within the native environment of the cell. This will provide unique clues for understanding the role proteins play in physiological processes and disease."

Duke CS Professors Nicki Washington and Shani Daily received an NSF Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE) Award @ $10M over 5 years for increasing equity and broadening participation in computing. Specifically, AIICE aims to increase the entry, retention, and course/degree completion rates of high-school and undergraduate students from groups that are historically underrepresented in computing through evidence-based, identity-inclusive interventions. Professor Washington said, "The computing discipline is finally acknowledging the ways in which technology is harmful for people of various identities. However, there is not enough being done to acknowledge how this applies in academic/professional environments. We are excited to lead this effort to transform the discipline."

NSF recently launched a $20M AI Research Institute at Duke, and Duke ECE and Computer Science Professor Yiran Chen is a leader of Athena, the NSF AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging Next-generation Networks. Duke’s institute will support a multi-disciplinary team of scientists, engineers, statisticians, legal scholars, and psychologists from 7 universities. The institute aims to transform the design, operation, and service of future mobile systems and networks with AI.

CS+, Data+ and Code+ undergraduate summer research programs will hold an online expo to showcase student projects leveraging big data, computer science, and mobile app and web development on Friday, August 6. More than 150 students total will participate. Join us as we celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of our students!

Duke CS-Public Policy Alumna Swathi Ramprasad was named an Eisenhower Global Scholar for her academic achievement, community involvement, and demonstrated leadership potential. The award provides funding for Ramprasad to attend Oxford University for a master’s degree. Her honors thesis on the demographic biases of bail-setting algorithms was awarded highest distinction, and she's the first Duke student to win this award. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science, Biochem and ECE associate professor Alberto Bartesaghi's team (cryoem.cs.duke.edu) recently received a $700K grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). They will develop cryo-EM software based on AI to sort out the shapes of individual proteins within the crowded interior of a cell, enabling knowledge about protein function and their interactions.

Duke Computer Science Professor Ashwin Machanavajjhala and coauthor Daniel Kifer of Penn State University received the 2021 ACM SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award for their "foundational paper on data privacy" entitled No free lunch in data privacy. Seminal ideas from the paper are being used to quantify the privacy ensured by the 2020 Decennial Census to US citizens. Congratulations!

Duke Math/Comp Sci major Norah Tan recently received a Faculty Scholars Award, Duke faculty's highest honor bestowed on undergrads. It honors students for innovative, independent research and scholarship. Tan's research included working on a project with Duke CS Professor Robert Calderbank to identify an original and elegant research solution to a problem in quantum benchmarking, now documented in a journal-submitted paper. Only two other Duke students received this prestigious award. Congratulations!

Congratulations to all recipients of the 2021 undergraduate student awards!

Duke Computer Science PhD student Hanrui Zhang was recognized as a Finalist in the 2021 Facebook Fellowship Program, which encourages and supports promising doctoral students in research related to computer science and engineering. Of the 2,163 worldwide applicants, only 26 were selected as Facebook fellows, with Finalists among the top 5%. Advised by Professor Vincent Conitzer, Hanrui is a PhD candidate whose research focuses on Economics and Computation. Zhang also won the ESA 2020 best student paper award.

Celebrate our graduates with us! Enjoy the Sunday May 2 virtual commencement on live stream video, plus special features like distinguished Duke CS alumni recordings, faculty messages, and more. Congratulations to all!

Professor of the Practice of Computer Science Nicki Washington will be the keynote speaker at AfroPix 2021 on Saturday, April 17. Hosted by Black in Technology -BiT, this inclusive virtual symposium features workshops, alumni panel discussions, networking with top tech companies, and more. Don't miss it!

Duke Computer Science Professor Robert Calderbank was selected as a 2021 SIAM Fellow, one of the highest honors of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. This distinction recognizes Calderbank's deep contributions to information theory, in addition to his exemplary research and outstanding service to the community. Congratulations!

Anish Karpurapu and Yasa Baig, junior Computer Science majors at Duke University, were named 2021 Goldwater Scholars by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. This is a prestigious national award for undergraduates in the fields of mathematics, natural science, and engineering. Congratulations!

Recent Duke CS PhD Yuan Deng won an honorable mention for the 2020 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. The AAMAS (International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems) recognizes his thesis “Dynamic Mechanism Design in Complex Environments” for its originality, depth, impact, and written quality. Supervised by Professor Vincent Conitzer, he also received the department's outstanding dissertation award. Dr. Deng is now a Research Scientist in the Market Algorithms Group at Google Research in New York City. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science Professor Vincent Conitzer is the winner of the 2021 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, which acknowledges the contributions of outstanding researchers in the field of autonomous agents, and recognizes excellence in work that influences and sets the direction for the field. Among other factors, Conitzer's highly cited work in multi-agent systems spans interdisciplinary areas in game theory, social choice, and economics. Conitzer will present a plenary talk at the AAMAS 2021 conference. Congratulations!

In this new video, Duke Computer Science Professor Alvin Lebeck answers questions about Phitonex, an innovative startup company that he co-founded. Crediting both the Phitonex team and Duke University, Lebeck states that "The foundational research behind the technology was performed at Duke over a span of about 17 years." Phitonex pioneered a spectral dye platform for high-resolution biology applications to accelerate research and development in cell therapy, immuno-oncology and immunology research, and the startup was recently acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Duke University's new Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) professional development program welcomed 144 fellows to its inaugural cohort. With Duke CS Professor Nicki Washington as director, in collaboration with ECE/CS Professor Shani Daily and ECE grad student Cecilé Sadler, the program provides expert training in identity-inclusive topics to improve computing diversity, equity and inclusion.

Vince Conitzer was appointed for a leading role with the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University as the Institute’s Head of Technical AI Engagement and Professor of Computer Science and Philosophy. He’ll continue teaching and researching here at Duke. Congratulations!

Kristin Stephens-Martinez hosts Joe Feldman, author of Grading for Equity and the CEO of Crescendo Education Group in this latest CS-Ed Podcast episode. Learn about the history of grading and why now is a good time to rethink our grading process to make it more equitable. Joe said, "Grades should only convey the student’s level of mastery, not their behavior."

Duke Computer Science graduate student Benjamin Bauchwitz was named 2020 Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) Student of the Year! As part of a US DOT program honoring students from University Transportation Centers who demonstrate achievements in academic performance, research, leadership, professionalism, and potential future contributions, Bauchwitz was selected by CSCRS as its outstanding student. Duke ECE and Computer Science professor Missy Cummings said “Students like Ben are extremely rare, and he is most deserving of this award.” Congratulations!

Assistant Professor Lisa Wills has received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "CAREER: Effectuating Hardware-Accelerated Systems with Domain-Specific Primitives." Total funding will be $544,448 over 5 years. The award will support Wills' research into how to create highly efficient hardware-accelerated systems for compute- and memory-intensive applications that process enormous volumes of data. This is NSF's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty.

Duke Computer Science students Liang (Charles) Lyu and Yikai Wu received awards from the Computing Research Association (CRA) for 2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Research. Selected as a Finalist, Charles studied incorporating fairness and diversity into established algorithmic frameworks with Kamesh Munagala and Brandon Fain. Awarded an Honorable Mention, Yikai designed query answering algorithms under differential privacy with Ashwin Machanavajjhala, and investigated the structures of Hessians for neural networks with Rong Ge. Congratulations on these prestigious national awards!

Duke Computer Science Associate Professor Ashwin Machanavajjhala was named a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest and most prestigious society of computing professionals, for "outstanding scientific contributions to computing" in the areas of cybersecurity and differential privacy. Congratulations to Ashwin on this well deserved recognition by his peers "for a range of accomplishments that move the computing field forward."

Xiaochen Du received Duke faculty's highest honor bestowed on undergraduates for innovative and independent research and scholarship. His research included 2 semesters of independent study with Associate Computer Science Professor Alberto Bartesaghi on cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) image analysis. Only 2 other students at Duke received this prestigious award. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science Associate Professor and computational biologist Raluca Gordan and research team recently published a Nature journal paper on how transcription factors may inadvertently lock in DNA mistakes. This is because binding to mismatched DNA takes less energy, and may explain how regulatory mutations get locked in.

Duke Computer Science, ECE, Math and Physics Professor Robert Calderbank and ECE and Math Professor Vahid Tarokh will lead a new 5-year, $5 M program, the Air Force Research Lab/Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFRL/AFOSR) University Center of Excellence: Agile Waveform Design for Communication Networks in Contested Environments. VT, Princeton, CMU, CSU and ASU researchers are collaborating on this national initiative to develop AI-informed communication and networking protocols that are fast and reliable enough to handle data-heavy Air Force requirements.

A national authority on cybersecurity and currently at UNC, Professor Michael Reiter will join Duke in January 2021 as a computer science and ece professor. Reiter says, “We have to engage all corners in developing this technology that's going to rule our lives or support our lives.”

New Duke Computer Science associate professor Benjamin Rossman works in complexity theory and engages in cutting-edge research at the intersection of computer science and mathematics. He is enthused not only about continuing his theoretical work at Duke, but also for the opportunity to work with outstanding undergrad and grad students.

Meet Nicki Washington, new Professor of the Practice at Duke Computer Science. With a focus on addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion issues at all levels, she looks forward to not only teaching core computer courses, but also supporting students in overcoming non-technical barriers to success, with a goal of creating a more inclusive environment.

NSF awarded Duke a $3 M grant to develop a graduate program for developing expertise in using AI for materials science research. Duke MEMS Chair Cate Brinson is the director of aiM (AI for Understanding and Designing Materials). Duke Computer Science Professor and aiM associate director Cynthia Rudin says that one of the keys to developing a workforce in AI for materials science is recognizing its interdisciplinary nature.

Meet Brandon Fain, new assistant professor of the practice at Duke Computer Science. With a focus on collaboration and group projects, his goals are to use computer science to solve real-world problems and to teach the next generation of students to do the same.

NSF and the Simons Foundation partnered to fund research through the Mathematical and Scientific Foundations of Deep Learning (MoDL) to understand and develop the theoretical foundations for deep learning networks. This $10 M multi-university, interdisciplinary project contains a Duke research award with investigators including Duke ECE, Computer Science, and Math Professor Guillermo Sapiro, Duke Computer Science and Math Associate Professor Rong Ge and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Math and ECE Ingrid Daubechies.

Duke Associate Professor of Computer Science, Biochemistry, and ECE Alberto Bartesaghi with Assistant Professor of Biology Gustavo Silva and coauthors recently published a study in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (PNAS). Their paper focuses on research using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy to understand new ways cells deal with environmental stress.

Nicki Washington's new course explores diversity challenges in computer science and the effects that this lack of inclusion has on technology. Washington says, "We have to change the mindset of a workforce that is overwhelmingly white, Asian and male so that we all recognize that new perspectives lead to more innovation.” Undergrads, register until 11:59 PM EDT this Friday, Aug. 28 for COMPSCI 190.

Duke Computer Science PhD candidate Hanrui Zhang will receive the best student paper award at the 28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA) Sept. 7-9, 2020. A fourth-year PhD student, Zhang is advised by Professor Vincent Conitzer and his research area is Economics and Computation. Zhang's recent focus is on learning and decision making in complex environments in the presence of strategic behavior. Congratulations!

Meet Danyang Zhuo, new assistant professor at Duke Computer Science. With a focus on building efficient and reliable data center systems, distributed computing frameworks, and data center-scale computer networks, he looks forward to collaborating with faculty while educating students on computer systems principles and helping them develop the ability to reason and adapt to change.

Duke Computer Science Professor of the Practice Susan Rodger's paper with co-authors "Exploring the role of visualization and engagement in CS education" was selected as one of the top 5 ITiCSE Working Group papers from the past 24 years of ITiCSE conferences by ACM SIGCSE. Congratulations!

The Data+, Code+, and CS+ undergraduate summer programs will hold an online expo to showcase student projects leveraging big data, mobile app and web development, and computer science on July 30 and 31. Over 50 student teams -- more than 180 students -- will participate. Join us as we celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of our students!

Jun Yang is named Chair of Duke Department of Computer Science effective July 1, 2020. Yang, Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor at Duke, has been with the department since 2001 and served as associate chair from 2017-2020. Yang said, "These are tumultuous times, yet the current crises are opportunities for us to come together to reimagine ourselves, and to act. Thanks to the department's hard work and to Pankaj Agarwal's leadership, we are well-positioned to tackle today's challenges with kindness, creativity, and hard work to reemerge both better and stronger."

Duke Computer Science students and professors presented 9 research papers at the ICML 2020 37th International Conference on Machine Learning July 12-18. Duke had an overall combined total of 22 paper presentations. A prestigious machine learning conference, this year ICML was virtual.

Learn about three innovative startup companies that began at Duke Computer Science, and the people who generated these projects and initiatives that spin up and out from campus, bringing critical solutions into the larger world.

Duke Computer Science Professor Alvin Lebeck is the recipient of the 2020 Alan D. Berenbaum Distinguished Service Award for creating, curating, and architecting the Computer Architecture Today blog, which transformed how the computer architecture community connects and communicates. This annual award is given by ACM SIGARCH to recognize an individual who has contributed important service to the computer architecture community. Congratulations!

The third annual Computer Science Undergraduate Project Showcase celebrated student inquiry in computer science. Students submitted 16 videos on projects from mentored research, class projects, and independent work. The projects showcased students creatively applying skills and concepts from their computer science coursework.

Duke Professor of the Practice in Computer Science Susan Rodger won the 2020 Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award from the National Center for Women and IT. A competitive award recognizing a senior faculty member's outstanding mentorship, efforts to encourage undergraduates in computing-related fields and to advance women and minority students at a PhD granting research institution, it is a great honor for Dr. Rodger to be selected for the NCWIT URM award. Congratulations!

Congratulations to all recipients of the 2020 undergraduate student awards!

Since our 2020 Commencement is postponed because of ongoing uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Duke CS is recognizing the Class of 2020 with faculty and student videos + messages to mark the moment of graduation from Duke. We're proud of our students and their accomplishments. Congratulations to all!

Duke Computer Science professors Kartik Nayak, Ashwin Machanavajjhala, and Jun Yang are collaborating with Lavanya Vasudevan from Duke FMCH in an NSF-funded COVID-19 exposure detection project, Poirot. A privacy-preserving system that uses smartphones to detect contact with potentially infectious individuals, Poirot also provides users with proactive alerts, a personalized assessment, and the ability to add retroactive information about users!

Bruce Donald's research paper in the Journal of Computational Chemistry is among the top 10% most downloaded papers! "OSPREY 3.0: Open‐source protein redesign for you", a collaborative effort with 13 Duke students and postdocs whom Donald advised, including  4 undergrads, received some of the most downloads in the 12 months following online publication. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science and Engineering students joined together to create their own internships, as consequences from the coronavirus pandemic led many companies to cancel their plans for interns. The new Project Phoenix program teams up technology-minded Duke students to work remotely on business, governmental and academic projects over the summer.

Jun Yang is Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor of Computer Science and co-director of the Duke Database Research Group. One of only five Duke professors selected for this honor, he is recognized for demonstrating excellence in research and undergraduate instruction, and also for being a good university citizen. Congratulations!

Duke Computer Science, ECE, Math and Statistics professor Cynthia Rudin, who runs a top interpretable machine learning lab, is interviewed in Chance Magazine by Sam Behseta and Michelle Dunn.

Duke Computer Science professors accommodate students over multiple time zones as classes transition online. Reinventing education and teaching worldwide classes, Vincent Conitzer and Owen Astrachan support students through an unimaginably disruptive time with a focus on preparing resilient leaders of tomorrow.

Phitonex, Inc., a startup co-founded by Duke Computer Science Professor Alvin Lebeck, has pushed flow cytometry to the upper limit of what is currently possible and announced the first data set showing 40 colors measured simultaneously on single cells in an experiment. The timing is critical, as these developers of next-gen fluorescent labels for biomarker detection collaborate in the fight against diseases like COVID-19 to understand the immune response. Congratulations!

Nikos Pitsianis and Xiaobai Sun with Aristotle University's Dimitris Floros announce the launch of a  a COVID-19 scholarly articles website, database and literature graph which contain more than 100,000 hot-off-the-press (HOTP) articles worldwide.

Duke students developed an app to trace contacts of coronavirus patients and help stop the spread. Shehzan Maredia, computer science/math major + developer and junior Alyssa Nicholas, who's marketing ContainIt say "With this app, you can help other people in your community stay informed."