News 2021

March 2021

Send Your Name to the Moon Through Iris Fundraising Effort

Aaron Aupperlee

The Carnegie Mellon University team sending a tiny rover to the moon in 2021 has invited more people along for the ride. The Iris lunar rover team launched a crowdfunding campaign this week to raise $50,000 to help with the final costs of their lunar mission. Anyone who donates to the project will have their name stored on the rover. "Space is expensive," said Raewyn Duvall, a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the deputy program manager of the Iris project. "We're always trying to find funding. This is really for the final push." The Iris rover will be the first American, the first student-developed, the smallest and the lightest rover to land on the moon. It is scheduled to fly there on a United Launch Alliance rocket this fall and touch down on the lunar surface aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine lander. The shoebox-sized, big-wheeled rover weighs about four pounds and has a team of more than 200 CMU students behind it. The team has set aside a section of its flash memory space for a file with the names of everyone who donates to their crowdfunding effort. "Anyone who donates, no matter the amount, will have their name aboard the rover's memory," said Divya Rao, a sophomore studying statistics and machine learning who serves as the project's systems management lead. "And you can say that your name is on the moon," added Duvall. Red Whittaker, a professor in the Robotics Institute and director of the Field Robotics Center, said that the project is a dream that has been years in the making. The greatest risk to success at this point is the lack of funding to complete the build, software, testing, lander integration, mission control and mission operations. "CMU has pioneered robots for land, sea, air. Our next frontier is the high frontier," Whittaker said. "We've got this one shot to beat the clock, make the launch, succeed with the technology and succeed in the mission." A final review with Astrobotic is looming, and the team's launch date cannot be pushed back. The rover is made of space-grade materials and carbon fiber, Rao said. The crowdfunding effort will help pay for the last flight components and for a series of tests needed to make sure Iris can handle the harsh environment on the moon. "And all that costs a lot of money," Rao said. The team has sent emails to students, faculty, staff and alumni about the crowdfunding campaign and raised more than $15,000 during the first two days. Rao said many fellow students donated to the project. "All of the students are really giving what they can on their student budgets," Rao said. "It's cool because they are going to be part of making history, and I'm really glad that they support this project."

Blelloch Receives 2021 Babbage Award

Aaron Aupperlee

The IEEE Computer Society has honored Guy Blelloch with the 2021 Charles Babbage Award for his contributions to parallel programming, parallel algorithms and the interface between them. "The award committee was glad to recognize Guy Blelloch for his seminal contributions to the field," said Marc Snir, chair of the Babbage Award Committee and the Michael Faiman Emeritus Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "Guy has been a pioneer in the field throughout his career, from his early work on the use of parallel-prefix, the development of the NESL parallel programming language, the development of many new parallel algorithms, the study of parallel runtime systems, to more recent work on parallel graph analytics. His work is elegant, deep and relevant." Blelloch, a professor in the Computer Science Department, has studied parallel computing since the 1980s, when it was the foundation of his Ph.D. work. When he started, parallel computing was rare and few people knew how to program for it. Now, parallel systems are ubiquitous. "The general theme of my work has been to bring parallelism to a broader audience and to make it more accessible," Blelloch said, adding that he has done this in part by teaching parallel programming to undergraduates and designing better programming languages. Blelloch said he was delighted to be honored with the Babbage Award and felt it befit his work bridging theory and practice. "I like to think that some of the ideas I had over my career have made a difference," Blelloch said. "I try to focus on ideas that will be useful 25 years from now, as opposed to solving a problem we are facing today that might not be relevant years from now." Blelloch has been on the CMU faculty since 1988, and from 2016 to 2020 served as associate dean for undergraduate programs in the School of Computer Science. He is an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) fellow and was chair of the building committee for the Gates and Hillman Centers. The IEEE Computer Society gives the annual Charles Babbage Award in recognition of significant contributions in the field of parallel computing. Babbage is an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who, along with Ada Lovelace, is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer.

Woodruff Earns Award for Teaching Excellence

Aaron Aupperlee

To adjust to teaching virtually during the pandemic, David Woodruff let his students set the pace. That meant sticking around on Zoom for an extra 20 minutes at the end of lectures. It meant longer office hours — two hours instead of one. And it meant cutting one lecture from his courses to slow the pace. "On almost every slide, I try to ask a question. I want the student to teach the material themselves," Woodruff said. "I went at the pace students were most comfortable with on Zoom. Dropping one lecture was worth it if they understood the other lectures better." Woodruff, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department who joined Carnegie Mellon University in 2017, was honored for that dedication with this year's Herbert Simon Award for Teaching Excellence in Computer Science. The award, presented annually by the School of Computer Science, honors faculty members for emulating Simon's legacy of dedication and excellence in the classroom. Undergraduate students nominate professors for the award, and they praised Woodruff for working with them individually and guiding them to an understanding of the material. "As someone who absolutely despised linear algebra going into the course, it's kind of a miracle that his teaching style made me appreciate its power and elegance and made me want to do research in theory," one student wrote in their nomination. During this past year, Woodruff taught an undergraduate algorithms course and the graduate-level Algorithms for Big Data. He thanked his staff of teaching assistants, some in different time zones, for making the courses run smoothly. Woodruff said he is looking forward to interacting with students in person when they return to campus. Watching them learn is the most gratifying part of being a professor, he said. "I like it when they have those 'ah ha' moments or connect something to a previous lecture and they see how beautiful this work is," Woodruff said.

SCS Faculty Members Earn NSF Career Awards

Aaron Aupperlee

Five School of Computer Science faculty members recently earned National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards — the foundation's most prestigious for young faculty members. The recent CAREER awards from the NSF total $2.84 million and will fund research projects ranging from robotics to algorithms. Award recipients include Lining Yao, assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII); David Held, assistant professor in the Robotics Institute; Ioannis Gkioulekas, assistant professor in the Robotics Institute; Ameet Talwalkar, assistant professor in the Machine Learning Department; and Pravesh Kothari, assistant professor in the Computer Science Department Lining Yao Yao will use her $550,000 CAREER award to make interactive morphing materials more accessible and bolster their use across many disciplines. The work will tackle developing hardware and software toolkits that will enable others to use morphing materials and build out applications of the technology, which could include smart manufacturing, medical devices, prosthetics, wearable technology, clothing, graphic design and even food, Yao said. "The most important thing to push is the vision that morphing matter can empower and embody computation and interactivity in the physical world," Yao said. "How can you develop a computation design framework and generalized methodology so everyone, such as a chef or a fashion designer, can design morphing materials for their fields?" Yao directs the Morphing Matter Lab in the HCII. She came to CMU in 2017 after earning her Ph.D. and master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy Remains Unchanged

Stacy Kish

Daily national surveys by Carnegie Mellon University show that while COVID-19 vaccine uptake has increased, the proportion of vaccine-hesitant adults remains unchanged. The concerns about a side effect remain high, especially among females, Black adults and those with an eligible health condition. The Delphi Research Group at CMU in partnership with Facebook released its latest survey findings. The analyses show that vaccine hesitancy persists and point to potential tactics to combat it. "Prior research by the CDC has found that Black and Hispanic adults are the least likely to receive the annual flu vaccine each year," said Alex Reinhart, assistant teaching professor in CMU's Department of Statistics & Data Science and a member of the Delphi Research Group. "Our survey suggests that COVID vaccine hesitancy follows a similar trend." Reinhart was joined on this report by Facebook research scientists Esther Kim, Andy Garcia, Sarah LaRocca and Katherine Morris. Delphi staff, including statistical developer Nat DeFries and survey coordinator Wichada La Motte-Kerr, contributed to the development and analysis of the survey. The survey tracks daily trends in behaviors and attitudes on issues related to COVID-19 at the state and county level. The surveys of Facebook users are conducted by members of the Delphi Research Group in partnership with Facebook's Data for Good program. The new report consists of responses obtained from more than 1.9 million Americans between Jan. 10 and Feb. 27, 2021. According to the latest survey results, the proportion of adults who are either vaccinated or willing to be vaccinated increased from 72% to 77%, which is largely attributable to a decrease in non-responses on the survey question. Vaccine hesitancy remained relatively steady at 23% The researchers note that vaccine hesitancy might be improved by addressing concerns about potential or perceived side effects. Seven out of 10 vaccine-hesitant adults stated they were concerned about side effects. "When it comes to increasing vaccine acceptance, our global health partners have emphasized that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach," said Kang-Xing (KX) Jin, Facebook's Head of Health. “By understanding geographic and demographic trends in vaccine hesitancy with the help of COVID-19 Symptom Survey, paired with public insights from Facebook about how people are talking about vaccines, public health officials can design and deliver tailored messaging campaigns that resonate with specific audiences within states, counties and communities.” The research team suggests turning to trusted local healthcare professionals to spread the word of vaccine safety and importance. Trust in local healthcare workers among vaccine-hesitant adults has increased significantly in January and February even though trust in other information outlets has decreased or remained unchanged. “Hesitancy can reflect existing mistrust of medicine, but uptake of the COVID vaccine, just like uptake of the flu vaccine, can also reflect unequal access to healthcare or unequal availability of convenient places to get vaccinated,” said Reinhart. “We're looking into this in more detail in newer versions of the survey, which ask specifically about access to the vaccine and specific reasons for not wanting to receive it.” Delphi researchers use the data to perform forecasts of COVID-19 activity at state and county levels, which are reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The COVID-19 Symptom Survey is the largest ongoing COVID-19 data-collecting effort in the country, gathering more than 50,000 responses daily and more than 18 million responses total since its launch in April 2020. Facebook distributes the surveys to a portion of its users each day as part of its Data for Good program. Facebook does not receive any individual survey information from users; CMU conducts the surveys off Facebook and manages all the findings. The University of Maryland likewise works with Facebook to gather international data on the pandemic, which can also be visualized through the Data for Good map and dashboard.

A New Way To Learn Computer Science

Caroline Sheedy

A team of Carnegie Mellon University learning scientists are developing a tool that could change the way high school teachers and students approach their computer science classes. This month, Schmidt Futures announced that the team is one of the winners of their Futures Forum on Learning: Tools Competition. This award will fund tools to aid recovery from pandemic learning loss and advance the field of learning engineering. The tool, RecapCS, was created by Ember Liu and Neil Thawani with support from John Stamper, an assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Liu and Thawani both graduated from the HCII’s Master of Educational Technology and Applied Learning Science (METALS) program, which trains graduate students to become learning engineers and learning experience designers. The pair met in a METALS capstone course, where they discovered a shared passion for computer science education. Teachers and students can use the RecapCS interactive dashboard to identify problems, assess learning and lend support through a community forum. "There is a heavy workload for teachers. It's difficult to track learning, and many teachers are not experts themselves. There is also the issue of equitable access to computer science education," Thawani said. "We wanted to address all of these problems at the high school level because that's cognitively when students are able to think more abstractly, one of the fundamental practices of computational thinking." Read the full RecapCS story on the CMU News website.

SCS Alum Uses Technology, Mentorship To Improve the World

Amanda Hartle

In his 2009 graduate school application for Carnegie Mellon University, Anirudh Koul described three systems he had already developed to answer questions a user might pose. More than a decade later, the CMU alum continues to ask questions and search for answers. "My 'night job' is basically thinking about bold, unsolved problems and figuring out how we can achieve them," said Koul, who earned a master's degree in computational data science in 2012 from CMU's Language Technologies Institute in the School of Computer Science. Koul was integral to adding a hands-free dictation feature in Microsoft Office — motivated by people with motor impairments — as well as an early video call feature that made reading lips easier for those with hearing loss. That development eventually led to the background blur on Microsoft Teams to provide privacy for users, Koul said. Next, he founded the Seeing AI app, inspired by his grandfather's failing vision. The talking app is now the most used assistive technology for the blind community after the iPhone. He went on to Aira, where he leaned on computer vision, AI and augmented reality to further assist the blind and low-vision communities. "I believe the world is full of gaps, and technology is a great equalizer. It helps level the playing field for everyone by filling one gap at a time," Koul said. "After seeing the value of projects like Seeing AI, I was looking to explore how AI could be used in other areas for social good." Read more about Koul, including his work with CMU's Roborace team, on the university's Alumni in the News site.

CMU and Pitt Launch Center Dedicated To Combating Extremist Hate

Julie Mattera

Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh are jointly launching a new center to study extremist hate. Scholars at both universities will partner through the Collaboratory Against Hate - Research and Action Center to develop effective tools that inhibit hate's creation, growth and destructive consequences. The center will bring together the collective expertise from all relevant disciplines — including computer science, data science, social sciences, psychology, psychiatry and the law — as collaborators seek to better understand and combat hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation and other prejudices. The collaboratory is being led by two top experts in extremist hate groups and cybersecurity: Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Dean of Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Kathleen Blee; and Lorrie Cranor, director and Bosch Distinguished Professor in Security and Privacy Technologies in CMU's CyLab. The universities are in the process of building out the center's research team and welcome engagement from experts at each institution, as well as from community groups. "The spread of extremist hate is undeniably insidious and increasingly dangerous. We have witnessed its violent consequences in our own community, including the horrific attack at the Tree of Life synagogue building, and have also seen this epidemic pose an existential threat to our nation's democracy," said Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian. "CMU and Pitt have a unique opportunity to work against this socially destructive force and enhance our multipronged efforts against all forms of hatred." "The University of Pittsburgh is excited to grow our close collaboration with CMU," said Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. "We've launched Collaboratory Against Hate with a clear purpose: to mobilize our experts and assets together so that we can better understand and address extreme hate — in its many iterations and implications — across the world." The center aims to develop effective interventions to inhibit every stage in the creation and growth of extremist hate, as well as interventions to minimize its impacts. Researchers will study how extremism originates and circulates, how it shapes extremist views and fosters polarization in society, and how it provokes harmful and illegal acts, with a focus on its effects on minoritized and marginalized groups in society. The center will partner with various stakeholders — ranging from victimized communities and advocacy groups to technology companies and policymakers — to better understand underlying issues and design intervention tools. These tools will aim to address different levels of radicalization and can be used by people, groups and institutions with varying needs and agendas. "This is fundamentally an interdisciplinary problem," said Cranor, who is also the FORE Systems Professor in the School of Computer Science and the Department of Engineering & Public Policy. "As our machine learning experts create new ways to detect hate speech and misinformation, it's important that they partner with social scientists who are researching the thought processes of extremist groups. Together, we can make greater progress toward understanding how these groups communicate, recruit and organize, and, hopefully, create interventions that will help reduce the spread of hate." Blee, who has studied white supremacism for more than 30 years, said that extremist hate groups have radically changed the way they operate and mobilize people to advance their agendas. The internet and social media not only provide groups with a vast arena for recruitment, but also places where they can hide. "They've made the distribution, mobilization and spread of online hate much harder to monitor and prosecute. It's also more difficult to decipher the extent to which virtual communities of hate are simply reinforcing each other or being pushed by organized extremist organizations," Blee said. "That's created challenges for researchers and law enforcement who are trying to understand how these groups work and how to intervene." The idea for this center came from the long-standing partnership between Carnegie Mellon's President Emeritus Jared Cohon and Pitt's Chancellor Emeritus Mark Nordenberg. While serving together on a committee created by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in the immediate aftermath of the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, they were asked to explore ways in which the community might constructively respond to the hate-fueled violence that occurred that day. Cohon and Nordenberg then worked with a group of faculty members at both universities, who contributed to the establishment of the center. "I'm enthusiastic because, as with so many other partnerships throughout our history, CMU and Pitt complement each other very well," said Cohon, who is also a CMU University Professor. "Both universities bring great strengths to a large and urgent problem in society. I know we won't solve the spread of extremist hate by ourselves, but I'm confident we can create exciting, effective approaches by collaborating together." "Before the deadly attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, I rather naively assumed that love always would triumph over hate," said Nordenberg. "As I came to learn more about the powerful tools that are being used to accelerate the spread of hate, however, it seemed clear that in today's world, love needs a helping hand. This center will be positioned to provide badly needed forms of help."

Students Use AI To Improve Cleaning Schedules at Pittsburgh Airport

Aaron Aupperlee

A group of students in the Language Technologies Institute's (LTI) Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation program are using AI to create smarter cleaning schedules for restrooms at Pittsburgh International Airport. AI will use data from flight schedules and sensors in the restrooms to better direct cleaning crews. Michael Shamos, Distinguished Career Professor in the LTI and the program's director, said the airport project — one of six capstones sponsored by outside organizations — was the most popular among his students this year. "It was a public service, and there are a lot of people in our program who are very concerned about using AI for public good. Public good not only means not evil, but it also means things that benefit lots of people, as opposed to systems that are built for a private company to increase its profits. And so anytime we have a governmental or nongovernmental agency, that tends to attract," Shamos said. Pittsburgh International Airport's Blue Sky News featured the project this week as the latest collaboration between the airport and CMU. The project is tied to the airport's xBridge innovation center, which includes Honeywell, CMU, and CMU-spinoffs Zensors, Carnegie Robotics and RE2.  

PlumePGH Website Tracks Pollution Spread Across Pittsburgh

Aaron Aupperlee

Industrial pollution from one side of Allegheny County can stink up air on the other side of the county. For years, the SmellPGH app from Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab has allowed users to report and map foul odors throughout the region. Now, a new tool from the researchers tracks the stinky pollution's origin and how it correlates with reports of smelly air. PlumePGH, a new website from the CREATE Lab in the university's Robotics Institute, uses detailed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather models to track how emissions spread throughout the region. Because sulfur emissions are the most likely to create a foul odor, PlumePGH tracks pollution from Allegheny County's four highest sulfur emitters — U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works, Irvin Works and Edgar Thomson Works, and the Cheswick Generating Station. On the site, moving dots represent the plumes being tracked, while different colors denote the four pollution sources. Users can follow the dots as the air particles move according to the NOAA weather models. If the pollution rises and clears quickly, the dots become less dense. The models on the PlumePGH website show how even miles from their sources, emissions maintain significant concentrations. This is especially true during atmospheric inversions, where cold air in the upper atmosphere traps warmer air — and pollution — near the Earth's surface. The greater Pittsburgh area experiences an average of about 157 inversion days per year, according to the Allegheny County Health Department. SmellPGH information is layered on top of the PlumePGH data to show how the spreading pollution correlates with odor reports. Each triangle on the PlumePGH map represents a SmellPGH report, and their colors correspond to the severity of the smell. Colors range from yellow, representing a barely noticeable smell, to maroon, which represents an odor that is about as bad as it gets. Users can also add data from air quality monitors around the region to further validate the modeling and SmellPGH reports. "The alignment of these independent data sources can help us understand whose health may be impacted by this industrial pollution," said Randy Sargent, director of visualization in the CREATE Lab. "The PlumePGH website lets you explore across time and find how pollution moved on any given day. You can explore smell reports and modeled pollution and add a variety of air quality monitoring data to the map as you engage in this effort to hold these industries accountable." The PlumePGH website includes a "Take Action" tab with resources to help users report air quality concerns and raise awareness of pollution in their communities. Ana Hoffman, director of air quality engagement in the CREATE Lab, said the page will assist users in identifying the source of the pollution and could spur them to advocate for cleaner air. It also assures users they weren't alone in noticing an odor. "It helps a person feel connected to other people who are experiencing pollution," Hoffman said. "We want this to be a technical resource — much like SmellPGH and the Breathe Cams — where someone experiencing a pollution event can go to add data to back up their concern."

SCS Grad Student Cracks Mars Rover Code

Michael Henninger

Down here on Earth, nearly 130 million miles from Mars, Adithya Balaji eagerly watched high-definition video of Perseverance and its successful descent onto the red planet. From his desk in Raleigh, North Carolina, Balaji took note of the rover's parachute and its peculiar orange and white pattern. He thought it was likely functional, perhaps for aligning cameras. Within the pattern, however, lay hidden a call for humanity to continue to push out toward the unknown. After NASA released that video — four days following Perseverance's Feb. 18 touchdown — systems engineer Allen Chen suggested during a news briefing that there was a coded message in the landing. Balaji grabbed his tablet and got to work. Hours later — after his solution blasted off across the internet — he had so many Twitter notifications that they drained his phone's battery. "Rocketry has always been a passion of mine, and it's not every day you get a chance to solve a cryptography puzzle on another planet," said Balaji, a master's degree candidate in the Computer Science Department. "That's the exciting thing about space. You get to see the whole world come together to solve a problem." Every passion has an origin, and Balaji points to his parents, public television and encyclopedias as igniting his interest in the final frontier. "My parents used to take me to the Johnson Space Center. I was lucky they always encouraged me. I would pretend I was part of mission control. I found myself reading about space and the planets in the encyclopedia," Balaji said. In high school at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, he started to build rockets with the school team for The American Rocketry Challenge (TARC) competitions. In time, Balaji found himself at North Carolina State University for his undergraduate degree, where he co-founded a liquid propulsion research lab. He chose Carnegie Mellon to continue his studies and expand his computer science skills, which came in handy when he recognized that Perseverance's parachute code appeared to be some kind of binary. Guessing correctly, Balaji took the white sections of the chute to represent zeroes, and the orange sections to represent ones. Having that piece, he put together a script to brute force (solving a problem using computing power to try every possible combination) what he thought might be an ASCII code, but it turned out to be simpler than that. Then he took what he had found, a series of scrambled letters, and confirmed his thought process when he discovered someone else in a space subreddit had independently uncovered the same letters and unscrambled them: "DARE MIGHTY THINGS," the motto of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Balaji posted a thorough explanation of the solution on Twitter. Yet Balaji's solution was missing one final part. In a reply tweet, Chen clued Balaji into the fact that his mystery was nearly complete. Balaji went back to Reddit and saw that someone had sleuthed out the coordinates of the JPL visitor center hidden in the outer ring of the parachute. With the puzzle finished, Balaji updated his code and tacked it onto his Twitter thread. The post caught the eye of a New York Times reporter, who interviewed him about the code. "The solution went semi-viral, and that shows the importance of clear science communication," Balaji said. "Several people arrived at the solution, but I think my explanation resonated. Even if someone doesn't know anything about computer science, they're able to understand how to arrive at the answer. NASA understands this, and has effectively communicated how space missions have led to the creation of everyday products like Velcro and GPS." History marks the progression of human achievement in space. Perseverance's landing is the ninth for America on Mars. Its surface travel will continue to enhance understanding of Earth's celestial neighbor. In his own way, Balaji inserted his name into the narrative, a small part of history. But one such accomplishment is not enough for the code-cracking computer scientist with his gaze focused on the extraterrestrial. Balaji now writes code with a dedicated team of students who plan to put a robot on the moon. In his second semester at Carnegie Mellon, Balaji became a software engineer for the group working on MoonRanger, a robotic rover being developed by CMU and spinoff Astrorobotic. MoonRanger will search for signs of water at the moon's south pole. Some 150 people have worked on bringing the project to fruition during their time at Carnegie Mellon. While Balaji is new to the project, contributing to a successful venture would fulfill a lifelong dream. "Not many software developers can say their code is running hundreds of thousands of miles away," Balaji said. "Finding water on the moon is the first step of sending humans deeper into space. With water, we can separate hydrogen and oxygen and make rocket fuel that can be used on a wayward launchpad." Gravity on the moon also will allow for easier launches, and Balaji said expanding out into the solar system is the next big step for humanity. "Space ... how can you not be romantic about space?" Balaji said. "What NASA did with the hidden code challenge was so inspiring, because it was something anyone with just a little bit of computer science knowledge could crack. It just takes a little bit of perseverance."

SCS Faculty Among Team That Earns MURI Award

Daniel Tkacik

School of Computer Science faculty members Lujo Bauer and Matt Fredrikson are part of a research team that won a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award. The team's project aims to address the challenge of human-bot cybersecurity teams (HBCTs), which are commonly deployed to combat cybersecurity threats and attacks but are not yet well understood. "While we know a lot about how humans use tools to work in teams, little is known about how to manage, observe and improve hybrid teams that are composed of humans and bots," reads the project proposal. "The area of team science that involves human-machine teams is still in its infancy." Cybersecurity is one of the most challenging tasks that the DoD faces today. A typical human cybersecurity analyst has to deal with a plethora of information, such as intrusion logs, network flows, executables and provenance information for files. Real-time cybersecurity scenarios present even more problems: an active adversarial environment consists of large amounts of information and techniques that neither humans nor machines can handle alone. Machine learning (ML) bots have become part of these cybersecurity teams to reduce the burden on human analysts by filtering information, freeing up cognitive resources for tasks related to the high-level mission. The multi-thrust research project will focus on building robust science on HBCTs, including ways to build trust within these hybrid teams, techniques to focus ML bots on cybersecurity-specific tasks, and methods by which HBCTs integrate information to arrive at decisions. The researchers also plan to study how to coordinate HBCTs in the presence of active adversaries who are also adapting to changing decisions. The team also includes Cleotilde Gonzalez, from CMU's Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of California San Diego, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Melbourne, Macqurie University, and the University of Newcastle. The team unites diverse expertise spanning computer security, machine learning, psychology, decision sciences and human-computer interaction. "The science and engineering challenges we face today are highly complex and often intersect more than one scientific discipline," said Bindu Nair, director of the Basic Research Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. "MURIs acknowledge these complexities by supporting teams whose members have diverse sets of expertise as well as creative and different approaches to tackling problems. This cross-fertilization of ideas can accelerate research progress to enable more rapid R&D breakthroughs and hasten the transition of basic research finding to practical application. It's a program that embodies DoD's legacy of scientific impact."

CMU Remembers Computer Science Visionary Howard Wactlar

Michael Henninger

Carnegie Mellon University lost a remarkable visionary this week with the death of Howard Wactlar, who pioneered computing on campus for nearly half a century while advancing the nation's research agenda through his work with the federal government. Wactlar, Alumni Research Professor of Computer Science Emeritus, held appointments in multiple departments in the School of Computer Science, including the Computer Science Department and the Robotics Institute. He died March 1 at the age of 77. "Howard was a profoundly insightful scientist and a big thinker, whose ability to connect computer science to other disciplines enhanced our institution in innumerable ways," said Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian. "Before coming to CMU, I had the pleasure of working with him at the National Science Foundation, where he provided vision and leadership for information science and intelligence systems. His contributions left a lasting impact on the nation's research agenda in ways that will benefit our society for decades to come." Wactlar's CMU career began with building a state-of-the-art research computing operation for the then relatively new Computer Science Department. The facility housed abundant and reliable computing resources available via timesharing, included the world's first shared-memory multiprocessor system, and was one of the earliest sites on the ARPANet — a precursor to the internet. Leveraging his computing expertise, Wactlar played an instrumental role in launching the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and served as its associate director. Today, the SEI is one of only 10 federally funded research and development centers sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. In recent years, Wactlar took leave from the university to serve at the NSF. He was the division director for information and intelligent systems and an advisor within the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering during the Obama administration. In that role, he helped develop and build participation in the National Robotics Initiative and the Smart and Connected Health program. Wactlar provided leadership and vision to advance how computer science could be used to solve challenges facing humanity. Those efforts included encouraging researchers to develop robotic systems that could work closely with humans, using computing to help elderly people age in their own homes, augmenting human capabilities to enable safer and more efficient work, and developing reskilling programs as the nature of jobs changes. "Howard Wactlar was a source of advice and wisdom for many of us working on the national strategy," said Tom Kalil, chief innovation officer at Schmidt Futures, who served in senior White House science and technology policy roles for former Presidents Clinton and Obama. "He was incredibly generous with his time, and his big-picture perspective, based on his broad range of experience, was invaluable as we worked to improve the computing landscape in areas such as digital libraries, robotics and improving the quality of life for people with disabilities." In the four decades he spent at CMU, Wactlar served in various research, technical and administrative capacities. He directed the joint CMU/IBM Information Technology Center (ITC) that pioneered ubiquitous campus computing, providing a model of university computing infrastructure for the world. He was the primary architect and project director of the Informedia Digital Video Library, one of the original NSF Digital Library initiatives. The project sought to develop a system for organizing information of the then-developing World Wide Web. Wactlar also developed technologies that aligned with his concern for human health and behavior and people with disabilities. He served as scientific director of the NSF Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center, which was co-led by CMU and the University of Pittsburgh, and was a leader of the Caremedia project. "Howard put together an eclectic group of people and created the Computer Science Research Computing Facilities group," said Sylvia Smith, manager in SCS Computing Facilities who was a colleague of Wactlar for nearly 40 years. "They took to heart every aspect of computing and put forth incredible effort to assist whatever project came to them. In the early days of the Computer Science Department, the facilities team learned and flourished with Howard as our leader." Wactlar was widely recognized for his humble leadership and ability to inspire others. "Howard was an exemplar of people who quietly got things done and focused on the work, without drawing attention to themselves," said Martial Hebert, professor of robotics and dean of the School of Computer Science. "For Howard, it was always about the greater good of the institution. For example, he and his wife, Mary, donated a seat in the Rashid Auditorium that honors 'students, staff and faculty that are the greatness of SCS.' He will be greatly missed." Wactlar received degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland.

SCS Names First Assistant Dean for Entrepreneurship Initiatives

Matthew Wein

Katharine "Kit" Needham has been named the School of Computer Science's inaugural assistant dean for entrepreneurship initiatives. Needham, who also serves as the director of Project Olympus, joined Carnegie Mellon in 2008 to work on the then newly formed startup incubator with its founding director Lenore Blum. "Even today, many people don't know what Project Olympus is," Needham said. "Hopefully, this will give a little more visibility to our programs and what we do. It sends a strong message." Project Olympus isn't just a startup accelerator. It also serves as a sounding board for students and faculty — especially those with questions about how their ideas might translate to the market. "What we try to do is create a safe space for students and faculty to explore the viability of their ideas at the lowest possible bar," she said. Needham came to CMU having worked primarily in the banking industry, including stints at the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, Mellon Labs and the Allegheny Conference. It was while at the Allegheny Conference that she started looking deeper into Pittsburgh's startup community. "That's when I met Lenore," she said. "When I got to Project Olympus, it was still early on. It was kind of a startup for me, which I really love. I love doing things for the first time." Since then, Needham says that Project Olympus's startups have secured $574 million in funding. In her new role, she hopes to help increase that number by making students and newer faculty members more aware of entrepreneurial resources in SCS and at CMU. "In some cases, we've been game changers. Most of the people behind our startups are not from Pittsburgh. We're keeping students here, and they're creating jobs. We're like a little economic development engine."

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