News 2018

May 2018

RoadBotics Wins ASCE Innovation Award

Byron Spice

RoadBotics, a Robotics Institute spinoff that uses smartphone and artificial intelligence technology to monitor the condition of concrete and asphalt surfaces, received the Overall Greatest Impact award in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) annual Innovation Contest. The company received several additional citations, including Most Feasible, Most Innovative and Best Value in the Internet of Things category, and Most Feasible in the Sustainable Engineering category. Christoph Mertz, Robotics Institute principal project scientist, has spent years developing a smartphone-enabled road inspection tool. He co-founded RoadBotics in 2016, along with Mark DeSantis, Benjamin Schmidt and Courtney Ehrlichman, to bring the technology to market. ASCE's Industry Leaders Council developed the Innovation Contest as part of the Society's Grand Challenge to significantly enhance the life-cycle performance of infrastructure by 2025. This year's winners will be recognized at an invitation-only celebration June 27­–28 in Reston, Va. The event will also afford them opportunities to present their ideas to industry leaders and network with other innovative thinkers.

CMU Student Discovers Website Leaking Locations of Cell Phone Customers

Byron Spice

Some cybersleuthing by Robert Xiao, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, uncovered a security vulnerability on the website of LocationSmart, a Carlsbad, Calif., company that provides a service for identifying the real-time location of mobile phones in the United States and Canada. Though the service routinely requires customer approval before it reveals any phone's location, Xiao was able to access anyone's phone location after only about 15 minutes of exploration of the site on May 16, without getting any individual's permission. "I actually couldn't believe my eyes," Xiao said. "I shouldn't be able to type in anybody's phone number and find out where they are." Xiao reported the vulnerability through the CERT Coordination Center on May 16, and notified the Federal Trade Commission on the morning of May 17. Within a few hours, the site was taken down, and the FTC announced today that it will investigate.. But Xiao said he is concerned that he so quickly accessed very sensitive information using what he considers "a low-grade hack." If he could do it, he reasoned, plenty of other people might have done so as well. Xiao has more than a little expertise in cybersecurity. He belongs to the Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP) — CMU's famed hacking team — which has won more DEFCON Capture the Flag competitions than any other institution. Last summer he captained the winning team at the Cambridge2Cambridge cybersecurity competition at the University of Cambridge. He will join the University of British Columbia in January as an assistant professor of computer science . He visited the LocationSmart site following several recent news stories about unauthorized access of mobile phone locations. A May 10 New York Times story broke the news that Securus, a company that provides and monitors phone calls for prison inmates, had been tracking people's cellphones without authorization for a Missouri sheriff. A May 15 story on ZDNet noted that LocationSmart was the intermediary that provided the location data to Securus. Companies such as LocationSmart work cooperatively with telecom companies to provide locations of cell phones for such purposes as tracking deliveries or remote workers. Rather than GPS coordinates, the service provides the address of the nearest cell phone tower. In all cases, cell phone users are supposed to be informed of or give their consent for such tracking. LocationSmart Founder and CEO Mario Proietti told the KrebsonSecurity blog that the company is investigating the security breach. "People get breached all of the time," Xiao said, and it's possible he was lucky in his attempts. But Xiao nevertheless is troubled that telecom companies provide such sensitive data to vendors and that more care isn't taken to protect it. KrebsOnSecurity reported that none of the major carriers would confirm or deny a relationship with LocationSmart, and all emphasized that geo-location information is provided only with customer consent or in response to a court order.  

Researchers Seek To Create Self-Assessing Robots

Byron Spice

In a parallel to how "The Little Engine That Could" once chanted, "I think I can, I think I can," university researchers sponsored by the Office of Naval Research are working to impart robots and other autonomous systems with the ability of self-assessment.People use a number of tactics to judge whether or how well they can do something, be it throwing a baseball, turning a valve or drilling a hole in a wall. Today's robots don't have that ability, and are ill-equipped to predict how well they can perform a task, to sense if a task is going well, or even to know whether they did a good job once a task is completed, said Aaron Steinfeld, associate research professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. As robots become increasingly autonomous, they will need this ability, he added.Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Brigham Young University, Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts Lowell have joined together in a five-year, $7.5 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program to develop methods and metrics for machine self-assessment.This self-assessment could be as simple as a robot being able to detect whether a task was completed satisfactorily, or could include prediction and evaluation of proficiency. In some cases, it might include a robot providing an explanation to a human about its performance."You'd like the robot to be able to explain why it can or why it can't do a task," Steinfeld said, such as a self-driving car telling its occupants why it can't drop them off at their requested destination. Identifying a lack of knowledge, dexterity or strength could enable a robot to work more efficiently with human partners.Researchers will test self-assessment approaches using dexterous search tasks for robots, such as maneuvering limbs to investigate obscured items, manipulating objects to reveal contents and adversarial manipulation, said Holly Yanco, a professor of computer science at UMass Lowell. These search tasks can be readily scaled up to applications such as robots deployed for emergency repairs, micro-drone swarms sent to map buildings, and urban search and rescue, she added.In addition to Steinfeld and Yanco, researchers include Jacob Crandall, associate professor of computer science, and Michael Goodrich, chair of computer science, both of Brigham Young; Matthias Scheutz, professor of cognitive and computer science at Tufts; and Henny Admoni, assistant professor of robotics at CMU. Reid Simmons, research professor of robotics and computer science at CMU, will join the team this fall. Extensive testing will be performed at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and UMass Lowell's New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center.The project was one of 24 awards issued this year by the Department of Defense's highly competitive MURI program.

Amal Nanavati Wins Fulbright Award, Inaugural K&L Gates Prize

Byron Spice

Amal Nanavati, a double major in computer science and global studies in the Class of 2018, has received two prestigious prizes — the Fulbright Award and the inaugural K&L Gates Prize.The Fulbright Award, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, offers new and recent graduates research, study and teaching opportunities in more than 140 countries. Nanavati is one of five Carnegie Mellon University recipients this year.Nanavati will conduct research in human-robot interaction under the supervision of Professor Takayuki Kanda at Kyoto University. His research will investigate how robots can learn to work and communicate with humans in smooth, natural ways by observing human-to-human interactions. He plans to continue human-robot interaction research as he pursues a Ph.D. at the University of Washington the following year.The $5,000 Gates Prize, supported by the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, is being presented for the first time this year. The prize recognizes a graduating senior who has "best inspired his fellow students at the university to a love of learning through a combination of intellect, high scholarly achievement, engagement with others and character."He will receive the prize during the School of Computer Science diploma ceremony this Sunday.Nanavati, of Fremont, Calif., said that growing up in Silicon Valley instilled in him the conviction that technology leads to solutions, which lead to human progress. He dreamed of joining a startup and building apps that change the world. After his first year at CMU, he traveled to Bengaluru, India, as part of a team from TechBridgeWorld, then a Robotics Institute lab that developed technologies for underserved communities around the world. He and his fellow team members worked with schools for blind and deaf children, developing a device to teach students how to write in Braille, software to help teachers document their local sign language, and a collection of games to help students who are deaf understand and visualize their voices during speech therapy class."That 2015 trip to Bengaluru rattled my views about technology," he said, motivating him to study how history and social structures perpetuate inequalities worldwide. "I have abandoned my naive faith that 'technology leads to human progress' and am committed to utilizing technology, together with an understanding of social context, to assist the underserved," he added.At CMU, he involved himself in research with Aaron Steinfeld, associate research professor of robotics, using robots to help blind travelers navigate indoor spaces. He co-founded and led Teknowledge, an educational outreach group that teaches computer science at under-resourced public schools in Pittsburgh. He returned to Bengaluru last year to enhance the speech-therapy games developed during his first visit."Overall, engaging in community service and outreach during my time at CMU taught me the importance of immersing myself in a community to discover their contexts, needs and perspectives," he said. "I have also learned that tacking any real-world problem requires interdisciplinary perspectives. Finally, outreach at CMU taught me that sustainability, both for technological tools and for organizations, is key. I intend to carry these lessons with me as I continue to pursue community-centric research and outreach in my future academic career."

Louise Zhou Wins Fulbright Award

Byron Spice

Louise Zhou, who graduated last year with a double major in business administration and human-computer interaction, is one of five Carnegie Mellon University recipients of Fulbright Awards for overseas studies.Zhou, of Cupertino, Calif., will travel to South Korea for her Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. Following orientation in Seoul, Zhou will teach English to middle school or high school students in a city outside of Seoul. She also plans to work with the Korean-American Educational Commission to help teach English to North Korean defector students looking to study abroad."Carnegie Mellon's emphasis on interdisciplinary education has allowed me to become a well-rounded individual," Zhou said, preparing her for Fulbright experience. "In particular, the HCII and design school helped shape my approach to problem solving and taught me the importance of iterating on solutions and thinking from multiple perspectives."Zhou hopes to become conversational in Korean and to identify a career path that will allow her to combine her interests in design and teaching.More information on the Fulbright program and all of this year's CMU Fulbright recipients is available on the Carnegie Mellon News website.

Carnegie Mellon Launches Undergraduate Degree in Artificial Intelligence

Byron Spice

Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science will offer a new undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence beginning this fall, providing students with in-depth knowledge of how to transform large amounts of data into actionable decisions.SCS has created the new AI degree, the first offered by a U.S. university, in response to extraordinary technical breakthroughs in AI and the growing demand by students and employers for training that prepares people for careers in AI."Specialists in artificial intelligence have never been more important, in shorter supply or in greater demand by employers," said Andrew Moore, dean of the School of Computer Science. "Carnegie Mellon has an unmatched depth of expertise in AI, making us uniquely qualified to address this need for graduates who understand how the power of AI can be leveraged to help people."This spring, U.S. News and World Report ranked SCS as the No. 1 graduate school for artificial intelligence.The bachelor's degree program in computer science teaches students to think broadly about methods that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks across many disciplines, said Reid Simmons, research professor of robotics and computer science and director of the new AI degree program. The bachelor's degree in AI will focus more on how complex inputs — such as vision, language and huge databases — are used to make decisions or enhance human capabilities, he added. AI majors will receive the same solid grounding in computer science and math courses as other computer science students. In addition, they will have additional course work in AI-related subjects such as statistics and probability, computational modeling, machine learning, and symbolic computation.Simmons said the program also would include a strong emphasis on ethics and social responsibility. This will include independent study opportunities in using AI for social good, such as improving transportation, health care or education.Students accepted by SCS as first-year students can enter the AI degree program in their second year. All students, thus, will take first-year courses in core computer science competencies and introductory courses. This will enable them to make informed choices when it is time to declare a major, whether it's AI, computer science or computational biology — the latter an undergraduate degree program that began in fall 2017.Initially, AI undergraduate enrollment will accommodate no more than 100 second-, third- and fourth-year students — or about 30–35 new students each year. (SCS enrolls about 735 undergraduates.) In fall 2018, a limited number of second- and third-year students who have already taken a substantial number of relevant courses can apply to join the new AI degree program.Just as artificial intelligence unites such disciplines as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics and human-computer interaction, instruction in the AI program will draw on the faculty of SCS's Machine Learning Department, Language Technologies Institute, Robotics Institute, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Computer Science Department and Institute for Software Research.The degree will leverage CMU's traditional strength in cross-disciplinary instruction, particularly in exploring the ethical and societal implications of AI, by involving faculty members from the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Heinz College and the College of Engineering.CMU has a long history in artificial intelligence, including the creation of the first AI computer program in 1956 and pioneering work in self-driving cars, facial recognition and natural language processing. Last year, SCS began its CMU AI research and education initiative, which involves almost 200 faculty members working in AI-related areas that range from art to public policy.CMU also has been a leader in education, offering the first university-level course in computer programming in 1958, launching the first Ph.D. program in robotics and creating the world's first Machine Learning Department. SCS will once again advance computer science education through its AI degree program, said Simmons, who is completing a 2.5-year stint as program director in the National Science Foundation's Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate and lead for the National Robotics Initiative."It's an opportunity for us to shape what it means to be a degree program in AI, as opposed to offering courses related to AI," Simmons said. The new program will employ the same academic rigor — no more, no less — that has made CMU's undergraduate program the gold standard for computer science."We want to be the first to offer an AI undergraduate degree," he continued. "I'm sure we won't be the last. AI is here to stay."For more information, visit the BSAI website at https://www.cs.cmu.edu/bs-in-artificial-intelligence. 

Former SCS Dean Shares Personal History With Computing Pioneers

Heidi Opdyke

Professor James Morris, former dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, is a legend in his field. But in a rich and lively lecture looking back on his career, it was the other giants he encountered along the way that Morris wanted to talk about — stories of Alan Perlis, Herb Simon, Robert Taylor, Allen Newell, Raj Reddy and others.The standing-room-only crowd reveled in Morris' journey through the early days of computer science, and also gave Morris his rightful place among those founders. CMU President Farnam Jahanian, who introduced Morris, described how Morris influenced the field through research and mentoring generations of computer scientists."It's easy to lose count of all the ways that Jim Morris has enhanced our lives, both as consumers of information technology and as members of the CMU community who care so deeply about using technology to improve the human condition," Jahanian said.A Pittsburgh native, Morris wanted to go to MIT or Caltech but considered then-Carnegie Tech."Carnegie Tech offered me a full scholarship," Morris said. "As my mother's only child — my father had died a few years before that — going to Tech seemed like a good thing to do. In fact, it turned out to be a great thing to do for my career."The First Computer ScientistAs an undergraduate, Morris played football and served as president of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. But he also studied computer programming under Alan Perlis after a friend told him about the "crazy teacher.""Perlis used to give whimsical homework problems: one day it was to design a language that described hotel room parameters," Morris said. "Probably because he had been in a hotel that day."Morris described Perlis as an administrator who saw the importance of student computing and who removed obstacles so innovations could happen rapidly at CMU.20th Century GalileoHerb Simon, who Morris called a "20th Century Galileo," loomed large in Morris' undergraduate career. He recalled one Simon lecture on how to be creative."Herb's idea was a fundamental belief that genius wasn't magic. It wasn't based on some intangible product of your brain, it had to do with practice," Morris said. "He said if you want to be world-class on something you had to spend 10 years at it."After Carnegie Mellon, Morris earned his master's and doctor's degrees in management and computer science, respectively, from MIT. And in 1969, he became an assistant professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. There, he contributed to important underlying principles of programming languages. He also was a co-discoverer of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt string search algorithm, a fast method for locating a phrase inside a large body of text.Demanding CoachIn 1974, Morris joined the Xerox Corporation research staff at its Palo Alto, Calif., research center, where he was eventually promoted to principal scientist and research fellow. During that time, he helped to develop the Alto System, the first distributed personal computer system.At Xerox, he met Robert Taylor, a manager who oversaw many of the company's brilliant computer scientists. Morris said Taylor's leadership style transfixed him."All of our egos were wrapped up in how smart we were," Morris said. "Bob's ego was aimed at something else. He was like a football coach who accumulated the best talent available and nurtured that talent and deployed it. For Bob, winning meant often challenging IBM."The Lone RangerMorris also saw Allen Newell as mentor who reminded him of his childhood hero, the Lone Ranger."There would be a problem, and he would come to town, do something brilliant, then ride out of town back to his research," Morris said. "Newell had a huge amount of courage, jumping into any topic and trying to understand it. That was really special."Morris returned to Carnegie Mellon in 1982 as a visiting fellow from Xerox and founding director of the Information Technology Center (ITC), a joint venture with IBM. As ITC head from 1983 to 1988, he helped to conceive and engineer Andrew, one of the world's first university-wide computing and communications networks.Newell, who was among the people who encouraged Morris to return to CMU, told Morris that the most important part of the Andrew project was to get the network right."That turned out to be completely true," Morris said. "Part of the system is still running 30 years later, which is amazing."Modern CircumnavigatorRaj Reddy, the Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics and a former SCS dean, attended Morris' talk."I think of Newell, Simon and Perlis as my father figures, and I think of Raj Reddy as my big brother," said Morris, who said you never knew where Reddy was because of his frequent globetrotting. "He has the chutzpah of Perlis with the grace of Newell."From 1992 to 2004, Morris served as department head and then dean in the School of Computer Science. He held the Herbert A. Simon Professorship of Human Computer Interaction from 1997 to 2000. He was the dean of CMU's Silicon Valley campus from 2004 to 2009, which he also helped create. He also is a founder or helped to establish CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute and Information Networking Institute, the consulting firm MAYA Design, the Robot Hall of Fame and iCarnegie.After sharing nicknames for his mentors, who also include his wife, CMU alumna Susan, who he called a "conversationalist," Morris called himself a "serial administrator.""I was trying to emulate these great leaders of the past, to do what I can to help the institution, but it's really to honor them that I was doing these jobs," Morris said. "They were impossible acts to follow. I couldn't possibly match that, but I was attempting to help."

Veloso Takes Leave to Join J.P. Morgan

Byron Spice

Manuela Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and head of the Machine Learning Department, will take a leave of absence to join J.P. Morgan as its head of artificial intelligence research, beginning July 1.In this newly created position, Veloso will establish an AI research capability at J.P. Morgan, Wall Street's leading technology bank and the largest U.S. bank by assets. The company already has started to apply machine learning technology across its businesses; Veloso will lead efforts to identify additional opportunities for artificial intelligence and design solutions that could transform financial services.In addition to partnering with J.P. Morgan's existing data analytics and quantitative research teams, Veloso will seek collaborations with universities and research institutions.Veloso’s move illustrates the close ties Carnegie Mellon faculty and researchers have to both the private and public sectors, where ideas born in laboratories are translated to products, services and policies that benefit society. A number of CMU faculty have taken leaves over the years to serve in government, the tech industry and other positions before returning to the university.Veloso joined the faculty of the Computer Science Department in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. there. She has led the Machine Learning Department since 2016. She is renowned for her research on teams of autonomous agents, exemplified by her work on robot soccer, and pioneered the concept of symbiotic autonomy with her CoBot robots. She is a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and of the RoboCup Federation. She is a fellow of the ACM, AAAI, AAAS and IEEE. 

Hammer Receives 2018 Teaching Innovation Award

Karen Harlan

Jessica Hammer, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University with joint appointments in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), has received the 2018 award for Teaching Innovation. All university award winners were recognized at the Celebration of Education awards ceremony and reception on Monday, April 30.The Celebration of Education recognizes Carnegie Mellon's distinguished faculty members and educators for their outstanding contributions to the university and their devotion to and effectiveness in teaching.Hammer was nominated by both colleagues and students with praise for her innovative approaches to teaching.For example, while teaching the course "Game Design for Crowd and Cloud," originally co-developed with Associate Professor Jeffrey Bigham, Hammer improved the feedback process to help students offer more thoughtful feedback about games-in-progress to their peers.Due to the nature of game design, feedback from players is of utmost importance to the game design process. Unstructured peer feedback sessions exhibited a range of problems, such as advice-heavy feedback that didn't provide useful data for decision-making. Implementing EOTA (Experience, Observe, Theorize, Advise), a more structured process, helped students to both deliver and receive better, more constructive feedback on game designs. EOTA divides the feedback process into four phases. Within each phase, students provide a range of perspectives, increasing the diversity of feedback provided. Providing low-level data (experiences and observations) before allowing students to theorize or advise makes it easier for students to deliver critical feedback, and gives design teams more versatility in incorporating feedback into their design process."EOTA has incredible potential to improve teaching practice in other disciplines," Bigham wrote in his nominating letter. "Increasingly, students want to work across disciplines, and work on real projects that others need to experience in order to give useful feedback. The EOTA methodology could be adopted readily by any course in which students create artifacts that can be experienced, and in which some of the pedagogical goals of the course include the ability to give and incorporate thoughtful feedback."Not only does the EOTA process provide better feedback, but Hammer has seen that it engages more students than traditional, unstructured feedback sessions.In a supporting letter, Associate Teaching Professor Karen Kornblum Berntsen, commended Hammer’s ability to create a positive learning environment. Berntsen co-taught an Interaction Design Studio with Hammer in 2016."In her interactions with students, Jessica consistently took control of the subject matter (interaction design), while creating an atmosphere where students felt comfortable and engaged," Berntsen wrote.Making students feel comfortable and confident to take creative risks is another important part of Hammer's pedagogy. "Since introducing short-form, low-stakes, deliberately imperfect design activities into my classes, I have observed my students become more willing to take risks, not only with their ideas but also with their personal choices," Hammer said. "For example, students are more willing to take on new roles within their project group, such as volunteering to be the team's developer when they have limited prior experience."Inspired by the work of colleague Brenda Bakker Harger, associate teaching professor at the ETC, Hammer begins each game design class with a short improvisation activity. Acting out various improv prompts like "Yes, and," "Yes, but" and partner mirroring helps the students become more comfortable with the vulnerability of working in interdisciplinary teams and presenting imperfect work in front of a group.After all, many of the key principles of improv — listening, making swift choices and building on your partner's contributions — are the same skills needed for leading successful group-based iterative design, including hearing feedback clearly and developing a storyline.MHCI student Po Bhattacharyya wrote in another supporting nomination letter that Hammer's use of improv activities in class "made us more creative and playful as game designers; it introduced students to the 'yes, and' philosophy, in which participants always add to the conversation and never put their teammates down. Jessica's choice of improv in a technology class was a brilliant way of emphasizing a number of soft skills that people in my field sometimes lack."Hammer combines game design with qualitative and quantitative research techniques to understand how games impact human behavior. Hammer is an award-winning game designer, most recently with Rosenstrasse receiving an Official Selection at IndieCade 2017 and Outbreak receiving Meaningful Play Player's Choice in 2016.Her work has been supported by the Heinz Foundation, the Okawa Foundation, Google, Amazon and Verizon.

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