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From the College of Natural Sciences
Alumni at Work: George Porter
On the opening page of his dissertation, which he submitted this past May, computer scientist George Porter cites a passage from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong,” writes Douglas Adams in Mostly Harmless, “is that when a thing that cann...
Kathryn McKinley Named ACM Fellow
Dr. Kathryn McKinley, professor at The University of Texas at Austin Department of Computer Sciences, was awarded Fellow status with a citation for "contributions to compilers and memory management." ACM has recognized 44 members for their contributions to computing technology that have generated a broad range of innovations to industry, commerce...
Cool Class: Autonomous Vehicles
Computer scientist Peter Stone’s CS 378 class was launched in the spring of 2007 under unique circumstances. Stone had been asked by the College of Natural Sciences to lead a “research stream” in the Freshman Research Initiative—to teach undergraduates by bringing them directly into the midst of his life as a researcher. He was also, coincidentall...
Working on a Wireless World
Every day that computer sciences professor Lili Qiu works to find new ways to make wireless connections faster, more reliable and more accessible is another day that the challenges, and the possibilities, of the wireless world expand. Since arriving at the university from Microsoft in 2005, Qiu has completed a general wireless interference model ...
Computer Scientist Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship
AUSTIN, Texas—Peter Stone, associate professor of computer sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on teams of mobile robots. Stone is one of 190 artists, scientists and scholars who received the fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Successful candidates wer...
Computer Visionary
Dr. Chandra Bajaj E proteins arranged on the surface of the dengue fever virus. Binding pockets in the E protein are good targets for developing a drug that could disrupt conformational changes in the protein and stop the virus from entering the cell. Visualization has always been important to science. From Leonardo da Vinci’s detailed drawings of...
Computer Sciences Professor Wins Highest Honor In The Field
AUSTIN, Texas—E. Allen Emerson, professor of computer sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the 2007 A.M. Turing Award, widely considered the most prestigious award in computing, for original and continuing research in a quality assurance process known as “Model Checking.” Emerson received the award, given annually by the ...
Computer Scientist Peter Stone Wins Award for Autonomous Vehicle
AUSTIN, Texas—Peter Stone, associate professor of computer sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, was named one of eight winners of the Tech Innovations Award by the Austin Business Journal. Stone received the award for his work on “Marvin,” an artificially intelligent, self-driving vehicle developed in conjunction with Austin Robot Technol...Chang Appointed To Congressional Commission on Cyber Security
Fred Chang AUSTIN, Texas—Dr. Fred Chang, research professor of computer sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, and Admiral Bobby Inman, the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, have been appointed to the new Commission on Cyber Security, established to make sure that the next president o...
Self-Driving SUV Advances to DARPA Urban Challenge Semifinals
AUSTIN, Texas—Marvin, a self-driving Isuzu SUV programmed by University of Texas at Austin computer scientists and members of Austin Robot Technology (ART), passed a recent driving test and will advance to the semi-finals, the last step before the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) 2007 Urban Challenge race. The test, which was he...The Virtual Brain
"The sensation of looking around seamlessly is an important fictionalization created by the brain." Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Walking on the sidewalk. Picking up trash. Avoiding 6-foot tall virtual purple rectangles. Learning how humans complete these simple tasks and millions of other ordinary activities is fundamental to understa...
Autonomous Car Advances to Next Stage of Urban Challenge
AUSTIN, Texas--Marvin, an “autonomous” Isuzu SUV programmed with the help of computer science undergraduates from The University of Texas at Austin, is one of 53 vehicles selected to advance to the next stage of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) 2007 “Urban Challenge” race, the agency announced on May 11. Marvin is a collab...Unveiling a Next-Generation Computer Processor
AUSTIN, Texas--The prototype for a revolutionary new general-purpose computer processor, which has the potential of reaching trillions of calculations per second, has been designed and built by a team of computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin. The new processor, known as TRIPS (Tera-op, Reliable, Intelligently adaptive Processing...Three Professors Elected Members of National Academy of Engineering
AUSTIN, Texas—Two computer science professors and a professor of engineering have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), widely considered among the highest honors to be earned in the engineering and technology professions. Dr. Stelios Kyriakides, the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engine...Read It Now
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