Department of Computer Science
Congratulations to recipients of the 2019 undergraduate student awards presented at commencement ceremonies on May 12. Alex Vasilos Memorial Award Friends and colleagues of the late Alex Vasilos donated the Alex Vasilos Memorial Award to the Department of Computer Science to recognize deserving students. This year's recipients: Rohith Kuditipudi For first-rate research contributions in several areas, including generative adversarial networks, theoretical guarantees for learning neural… read more about Undergraduate Awards Presented 2019 »
In honor of her winning the 2019 Taylor L. Booth Education Award, the IEEE Computer Society recently published an interview with Professor Susan Rodger. She talks about her ground-breaking work to increase younger students' computer literacy, and much more. read more about IEEE interviews Susan Rodger, Taylor L. Booth Education Award Winner »
Duke Computer Science Associate Professor and security expert Ashwin Machanavajjhala spoke in Washington, DC on current capabilities of differential privacy and its applications to federal statistical agencies at a workshop held by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on June 6. read more about Ashwin Machanavajjhala speaks on Differential Privacy in Washington, DC at the National Academies of Sciences »
Conitzer entered his video on consciousness in the National Science Foundation competition, which sets the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science and engineering. View and comment by June 26 to help select Conitzer's question as vital research to address in the coming decade. read more about Conitzer Submits Video on the "Theory of Conscious Experience" to the NSF 2026 Idea Machine »
The Department congratulates our newest graduates who were awarded degrees for 2018-2019 at commencement ceremonies on May 12, 2019. Visit Facebook photo album. PhD Degrees | MS Degrees | MSEC Degrees | Undergraduate Degrees PhD Degrees Ilker Bozkurt - Advisor: Bruce Maggs. Getting More Out of the Existing Internet Infrastructure To Improve User Experiences. Cassandra Carley - Advisor… read more about 2019 Graduation: Degrees Conferred »
Professor Cynthia Rudin states in this new paper that both “black box” and “explainable” machine learning models carry serious concerns for those who care about justice and accuracy in high-stakes fields like criminal justice and healthcare. read more about Cynthia Rudin's paper "Stop explaining black box machine learning models for high stakes decisions and use interpretable models instead" is published on Nature Machine Intelligence »
Computer science doctoral student Alina Barnett was selected as Energy Data Analytics PhD Student Fellow by Duke University Energy Initiative. read more about Alina Barnett Named an Energy Data Analytics Fellow »
Duke computer science and neuroscience major Luke Farrell's undergrad research with a Bass Connections team provided evidence that gerrymandering in North Carolina diminished the value of some people's votes - and it took him to the US Supreme Court. read more about Luke Farrell's undergraduate research took him to the US Supreme Court »
Duke's Cynthia Rudin recently demonstrated the real-world impact that interdisciplinary research can make, when her team of two machine learning experts and two neurologists used interpretable models to predict seizures in ICU patients. Rudin and colleagues from Wisconsin, Harvard, and Mass General won first prize in the INFORMS Innovative Applications in Analytics Award competition. Congratulations! read more about Duke's Cynthia Rudin and Colleagues from Wisconsin, Harvard, and Mass General take first prize at IAAA »
Caroline Wang, a junior computer science major at Duke University, has been named a 2019 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. This is a prestigious national award for undergraduates in the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering. Congratulations! read more about Duke Computer Science undergraduate wins prestigious Goldwater Scholarship »
Duke's Bruce Donald, James B. Duke professor of computer science and researchers from his lab launched Gavilán Biodesign, which uses software to overcome drug resistance and fight cancer. Their company was selected as a startup by IndieBio, a biotech startup accelerator. read more about Bruce Donald and researchers from his Duke lab start company that uses software to overcome drug resistance, fight cancer »
In recognition of her teaching excellence, Professor of the Practice in Computer Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies Susan Rodger received the 2019 David and Janet Vaughn Brooks Award from Duke University’s Trinity College. Congratulations! read more about Susan Rodger Recipient of Brooks Teaching Award »
Shalin Shah, John Reif, and Abhishek Dubey of Oak Ridge National Lab just published research on a new imaging technique in which tiny light-up DNA barcodes identify molecules by their twinkling. The team will present their work on April 15, 2019 at the 16th Foundations of Nanoscience Conference (FNANO19). read more about Shah, Reif, and Dubey to Present Temporal DNA Barcode Research at FNANO19 Conference »
Jun Yang, Associate Chair and Duke Professor of Computer Science, recently published Data Management in Machine Learning Systems, with coauthors Matthias Boehm and Arun Kumar. This important book follows a data-centric view of ML systems and provides a comprehensive overview of data management in ML systems for the end-to-end data science or ML lifecycle. read more about Jun Yang Publishes "Data Management in Machine Learning Systems" »
Susan Rodger, a professor of the practice of computer science at Duke University, will receive the 2019 IEEE Computer Society Taylor L. Booth Education Award “for leadership in undergraduate and K-12 computer science education, and for broadening participation of women in computing.” Congratulations! read more about Susan Rodger is Recognized with IEEE Computer Society 2019 Taylor L. Booth Education Award »
The Lane Family Ethics in Technology Program begins next fall for a three-year trial run and seeks to integrate ethics into engineering and computer science, addressing new ethical quandaries that have come along with the advancement of technology. read more about Morality and machines: New program aims to integrate ethics into technology curriculum »
Professor Cynthia Rudin comments on an AI approach to finding patterns between related crimes she helped invent while at MIT, along with former student Tong Wang, Lt. Daniel Wagner and Rich Sevieri of the Cambridge PD. These ideas are now being implemented in software at the NYPD to solve crimes! read more about NYPD Unveils Controversial Algorithm to Track Crime Patterns »
Alumnus Lirong Xia graduated from Duke in 2011 with a PhD in Computer Science and in 2010 with an MA in Economics at Duke. Now a CompSci associate professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), he has published a book entitled Learning and Decision-Making from Rank Data. This is part of Mongan & Claypool's Synthesis Lectures on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The Book Lirong’s book surveys recent progress toward addressing learning… read more about Duke CompSci Alumnus Lirong Xia Publishes Book on AI and ML »
Duke Computer Science professor Cynthia Rudin, along with colleagues Aaron Struck (Wisconsin), Berk Ustun (Harvard), and Brandon Westover (Massachusetts General Hospital) are finalists for the 2019 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (IAAA) for their work "Transparent Machine Learning Models for Predicting Seizures in ICU Patients from cEEG Signals." Their interpretable machine learning model for predicting seizures in ICU patients is currently in use, and stands to have a… read more about Duke's Cynthia Rudin and Colleagues from Wisconsin, Harvard, and Mass General are IAAA Finalists »
Duke Sophomore Alex Balfanz used his programming skills to develop the wildly popular Jailbreak game, earning millions. His ongoing improvements and coding updates keep the players coming back. Initially drawn to Duke's machine learning department and now studying computer science and statistics, Balfanz says "I always knew I wanted to do programming for my career. . . I just want to keep doing what I love." read more about Jailbreak computer game made Duke Computer Science student Alex Balfanz millions »
Gavilán Biodesign was formed by Professor Bruce Donald and Duke Co-founders Mark Hallen, Jonathan Jou, and Marcel Frenkel to design better drugs, while anticipating drug resistance. Now selected as a biotech start-up at IndieBio, Gavilán's technology will enter the world of entrepreneurship. Congratulations to this interdisciplinary team of Duke scientists! read more about Using Supercomputers to Checkmate Cancer »
Ashwin Machanavajjhala, Duke computer science professor and privacy expert, spoke on “Public Use Data Products and Privacy Protection: Experiences from the Front Lines” at the AAAS Annual Meeting. Currently assisting the 2020 Census team to modernize their data publications using differential privacy (DP), Professor Machanavajjhala’s recent work includes “Utility-cost of Provable Privacy: A Case Study Using United States Census Data.” Dr. John Abowd, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Chief Scientist and… read more about Ashwin Machanavajjhala spoke at AAAS Annual Meeting on Privacy and the Census »
Vahid Tarokh, the Rhodes Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics, was named a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Congratulations! read more about Vahid Tarokh elected to NAE »
Congratulations to Vincent Conitzer, who was recently elected as a new AAAI fellow. Officially inducted at the AAAI 2019 conference, Conitzer is Kimberly J. Jenkins University Professor of New Technologies, Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Economics, and Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. read more about Vince Conitzer Named 2019 AAAI Fellow »
FICO recently announced winners of the inaugural explainable machine learning challenge. Duke Computer Science received the FICO Recognition Award for going above and beyond expectations with a fully transparent global model and a user-friendly dashboard. Duke's team included Cynthia Rudin, Chaofan Chen, Kangcheng Lin, Yaron Shaposhnik, Sijia Wang, and Tong Wang. read more about Duke Computer Science receives FICO Recognition Award »
It's the 50th anniversary of SIGCSE, the pre-eminent international conference on computer science education. To commemorate the occasion, just 20 papers from the last 50 years were nominated for consideration as the top 10 most influential and important papers of all time. Authored by Owen Astrachan, Duke Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, and three then undergraduate Duke students, the paper Design patterns: an essential component of CS curricula was nominated… read more about Astrachan, Berry, Cox, and Mitchener Nominated for SIGCSE Top 10 Symposium Papers of All Time Award »
The computer science department is proud to acknowledge that PhD candidate Brandon Fain was selected as a 2019 Teaching Award Recipient. The 2019 recipients of the Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Mentoring, Excellence in Teaching and Inclusive Excellence in Graduate Education were just announced on January 14, and the Awards Ceremony will take place in March 2019 at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. This is a well-deserved recognition for Brandon's hard work. A highly competitive award,… read more about Brandon Fain Wins the 2019 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching »
Jeff Forbes, Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science was recently awarded a substantial grant through a partnership with Siegel Family Endowment. The grant funds a project originating in an October 2018 ACM report, "Lighting the Path: From Community College to Computing Careers.” Forbes led the development of this report, and he also chaired the ACM Education Policy Committee. Findings from the ACM report will be converted into actionable recommendations that will be… read more about Jeff Forbes Awarded Grant to Develop Computer Science Degree and Career Paths for Minority Students »
Bob Wagner, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Duke University, passed away in December 2018. Bob joined the Department of Computer Science at Duke in 1978 and retired in 2007. Over the span of three decades, he served the department in multiple capacities. He was well known for his foundational work in algorithms and complexity, especially string algorithms. read more about Computer Science Emeritus Professor Bob Wagner Dies »
With organizations like Facebook currently proposing that employees and external third parties analyze sensitive user data, a need exists for the analysis of sensitive data by systems with strong privacy guarantees. Machanavajjhala and Kotsogiannis will present compelling research on just this topic in their paper "Architecting a Differentially Private SQL Engine." At the biennial Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research on Jan. 14, 2019, they will unveil their revolutionary… read more about Machanavajjhala and Kotsogiannis Present Novel Private Database System at CIDR 2019 »