The Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department made significant accomplishments during the 2010-2011 school year. Our undergraduate enrollment grew to 886 students and our graduate enrollment grew to 271 students. Our department produced a total of 16 Ph.D’s during that time period. Our research productivity in terms of research expenditures has reached the level of our departmental budget at nearly $6 Million. In addition, Professor Hillol Kargupta was elevated to the level of IEEE fellow, and Professor Marie desJardins was promoted to full Professor.

Last year also marked a number of changes within the department. I became the Chair in October of last year after Professor Anupam Joshi ably served the department as interim chair, following Professor Charles Nicholas stepping down from the position.

We have also gained three new Computer Engineering faculty members: Assistant Professors Tinoosh Mohsenin, Chintan Patel, and Gymama Slaughter. Most recently, Shawn Lupoli joined the department as a lecturer in Computer Science.

Last year was also a time of transition. We had a number of faculty members retire: Sue Evans, senior lecturer in Computer Science, Professor John Pinkston, and Professor Zary Segall. We will miss their contributions to the department. In order to compensate for these losses, I am pleased to report that we have been authorized to search for a new Computer Science Assistant Professor.

Please look at our new website which contains a wealth of information for students, faculty, staff, visitors, and prospective students. You can visit it at www.csee.umbc.edu

-Gary
 

In partnership with UMBC Physics Professor Dr. Lynn Sparling, WeatherBug, the Albright Foundation, and two local schools, Federal Hill Preparatory School (Baltimore City) and Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Howard County), the Shriver Center was awarded a one-year grant through Constellation Energy's "Energy to Educate" program.  This is the second semester of this project, which runs January-December 2011. The POWER project seeks to teach 6th-8th grade students the basics about wind energy and other sustainable energy resources.  Each grade level across schools will focus on a research question and will make presentations on their findings by the end of the semester.  WeatherBug has installed weather monitoring stations at both of the schools to assist the students in their research.  Selected UMBC students (Fellows) will deliver the science curriculum and help the students perform activities related to their research question. 

At this time, we are recruiting for 2 Fellowships this fall, starting late September-December 2011.  Availability is Wednesdays (12:30-3:15 pm) and Fridays (12:30-3:45 pm) at OLPH (15 minutes from UMBC).  The shifts factor in adequate travel time to the school from UMBC.  Ideally, applicants would be available on BOTH days.Each Fellow will receive $500 per semester.  Students will be enrolled in the 096 Service-Learning Practicum, and may also have the chance to receive credit for their involvement.  UMBC students with majors in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (particularly in Physics and Environmental Science) and/or STEM Education are encouraged to apply.

Interested students should fill out the attached, one-page application and submit it to POWER Fellows Supervisor Stephanie Pully at spully1@umbc.edu or in-person to The Shriver Center by Friday, September 16th, NO LATER THAN 5 pm.  The Shriver Center is located on the 1st Floor of the Public Policy Building, just past the elevators.  Interviews will be scheduled immediately the week after, starting Monday, September 19th and selections made by Friday, September 23rd.  We plan for Fellows to begin at OLPH starting Wednesday, September 28th.

JOB SUMMARY:

• Support Corporate Audit initiatives

• Interaction with Business Unit and corporate personnel to support program goals for management testing of key controls for compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

• Participate in other risk-based audits

• Other ad hoc activities, as needed

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Pursuing Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting or equivalent

• Time management skills

• Strong computer skills (Excel & Word)

• Detail-oriented

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills

• High integrity

• Knowledge of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Statement of Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70 preferred but not required

COMPANY INFORMATION:

Constellation Energy (www.constellation.com) is a leading competitive supplier of power, natural gas and energy products and services for homes and businesses across the continental United States. It owns a diversified fleet of generating units, totaling approximately 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity, and is a leading advocate for clean, environmentally sustainable energy sources, such as solar power and nuclear energy. The company delivers electricity and natural gas through the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), its regulated utility in Central Maryland. A FORTUNE 500 company headquartered in Baltimore, Constellation Energy had revenues of $14.3 billion in 2010.

APPLICATION INFORMATION:

Apply via UMBCworks - position number 9229842

Six CSEE graduate students will present their research First Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning is a one-day event to be held at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on Friday, 23 September 2011. Its goal is to bring together students taking computational approaches to speech, language, and learning, so that they can introduce their research to the local student community, give and receive feedback, and engage each other in collaborative discussion. The students and the titles of their presentations are:

• Niyati Chhaya, Joint Inference for Extracting Text Descriptors from Triage Images of Mass Disaster
• Lushan Han, GoRelations: An Intuitive Query System for DBpedia
• Niels Kasch, Concept Modeling for Scripts
• Justin Martineau, DIVA: Domain Independence Verification Algorithm for Sentiment Analysis
• Varish Mulwad, Automatically Generating Linked Data from Tables
• Jennifer Sleeman, A Streaming Approach to Linking FOAF Instances
• Xianshu Zhu, Finding Story Chains in Newswire Articles

Attendance is open to all and free but space is limited, so online registration is requested by September 16. The program runs from 10:00am to 5:00pm and will include oral presentations, poster sessions, and breakout sessions.

IS, CMSC, Media & Communication Majors etc Needed

Apply today via UMBCworks for the positions below:

Student Profile

Farhan Saifudin, Information Systems major

Title:  Federal Software Specialist

Internship Site:  PaRaBaL Inc. & InTTensity Corp.

Assignment:  At PaRaBaL, Inc. we are taught how to market to federal entities, so that our software and services may improve their capabilities. We are working with government agencies to assist them with cyber-security and social media monitoring, practices that are quickly becoming important in our ever-connected future. As an intern I was able to gain valuable experience in several areas of interest including IT consulting, QA, and web development.

Benefits of Interning:  As the summer is progressing, I am getting a taste of the real world that will allow me to get acclimated with the norms of professional life.  The first-hand experience that I have gained has been extremely valuable and cannot be duplicated in any class or textbook.

“This internship has given me insight on professional life that can only come from dedication and hard work. Whether or not you are sure what you want to do when you graduate college, an internship is a great way to gain valuable skills that will help you no matter what industry or profession you pursue.”