Assistant Professor Gushu Li has been honored with the prestigious NSF Career Award, signaling a groundbreaking venture into the world of quantum computing. The central challenge Gushu is tackling revolves around creating programming systems that can support larger-scale quantum computers. Imagine our current systems as tailor-made for small prototypes, limiting the true potential of these advanced quantum machines.
The focus of Gushu Li’s research is on enhancing the way we write and execute programs for quantum computers. The obstacle lies in the fact that existing systems are like specialized tools for small tasks. They are not equipped to handle the complex demands of larger-scale quantum computers. To address this, Gushu is essentially upgrading the software that controls quantum computers, making it smarter and more adaptable.
The NSF Career Award doesn’t just fuel groundbreaking research but also enables Gushu Li to expand the team. New graduate students will be brought in to contribute to related projects and help build the proposed software improvements. Beyond the technical aspects, Gushu is also committed to sharing knowledge and raising awareness. The award will support the creation of two courses focused on quantum computing. They won’t just be for tech enthusiasts, but for anyone interested in understanding this cutting-edge technology.
Additionally, Gushu Li plans to be part of existing outreach programs. Introducing quantum computing concepts to students at various levels is important to expose young minds to all academic options. The interdisciplinary nature of this research, blending computer science, math, physics, and engineering, underscores its significance in advancing our understanding of how we can manipulate the very building blocks of the universe. Gushu and the team are on a path to making meaningful contributions, thanks to the support provided by the NSF Career Award.
Aaron Roth, a Professor of Computer Science and Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded the prestigious Hans Sigrist Prize by the University of Bern. This award, endowed with 100,000 Swiss francs, recognizes Roth’s pioneering work in the field of fair algorithms and his efforts to incorporate social norms into algorithmic decision-making processes.
Roth’s research, spanning over 15 years, has focused on critical issues such as algorithmic fairness and differential privacy. Algorithmic fairness is concerned with ensuring that algorithms do not perpetuate biases against specific demographic groups, particularly in areas like job applications. Roth highlights the importance of careful algorithm design to avoid unintentional bias based on historical data.
Differential privacy, another key aspect of Roth’s work, involves developing mathematical methods to analyze large datasets while preserving individual privacy. By combining data in a way that prevents the identification of specific individuals, Roth’s research contributes to the responsible use of data, particularly in fields like clinical studies.
The Hans Sigrist Prize committee commended Roth’s outstanding contributions, emphasizing that his work not only benefits society but also helps individuals maximize the benefits of data science while mitigating negative side effects.
Roth’s research aligns with the current initiatives at the University of Bern, which seeks to address digitalization in an interdisciplinary manner and as part of social transformation. The university’s focus on projects that transcend traditional faculty boundaries, as evident in the Bern Data Science Initiative BeDSI, aligns with Roth’s vision for tackling challenges in data science.
Christiane Tretter, Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Bern and Chair of the 2023 Hans Sigrist Prize Committee, highlights the significance of Roth’s work in bridging the perceived gap between fairness and algorithms. She notes that Roth’s achievements send a positive signal to the university and beyond, emphasizing the need for increased attention to topics like fairness and algorithms.
Roth, when asked about his plans for the prize money, expresses the importance of building a research community in the area. He recognizes the value of foundation funds, such as those from the Hans Sigrist Foundation, in supporting this goal and advancing research in algorithmic fairness and privacy. Roth’s commitment to creating awareness and addressing challenges in data analysis underscores the transformative potential of his work in shaping ethical and responsible data science practices.
“Picture a room full of students hard at work on math problems. Some draw graphs on the chalkboard, testing out algorithms. Others shuffle complicated algebraic expressions, trying to simplify a summation. Still, others stare intently at a piece of paper, trying to find the one necessary final lemma to complete a proof or to understand a recent result.
The students are all working hard, but they are also having fun, as the air is ripe with the excitement of discovery. These are not college students, though they are studying at a college campus, and learning material that is not normally taught until the undergrad or even the graduate level. Rather, these are mostly high school students, spending their summer learning and enjoying themselves, studying theoretical computer science.”
The Program in Algorithmic and Combinatorial Thinking (PACT), ran by Rajiv Gandhi (Professor of CIS @ Rutgers-Camden/part-time Lecturer in CIS @ UPenn), is partially supported by the National Science Foundation. It is a five-week intensive course that teaches students about the mathematics and algorithms fundamental to the computer science field. There were two groups running simultaneously. In the “Beginner’s Group”, students learned the “Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science” while students in the advanced group studied “Advanced topics in Algorithm Design”.
“During Summer 2023, PACT was run in hybrid mode, i.e., there were some students who did the program in person and others did it online. The in-person program had 11 students (from MA, NY, NJ, China) and the rest (more than 150) did the program online — students from various countries (Australia, Canada, China, India, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, S. Korea, Switzerland, US). The youngest student in the program had finished grade 5. Most others were high school students and some were in college.”
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi established the PACT for high school students in 2010. Since 2011, the program has taken place at Princeton University and has been attracting students from the U.S. and internationally. The program has grown from a handful of students to nearly 200 students each year. PACT gives students the ability to be exposed to advanced topics in computer science at a young age. Rajiv has also worked closely with and mentored students in India at schools whose students have not typically gone on to graduate study.
Many PACT students over the years have pursued PhDs in Computer Science as well as other STEM fields. Several of our students and alumni at Penn Engineering participated in PACT when they were in high school. Students including Chris Jung and Ezra Edelman (currently, a student of Surbhi Goel) are a few examples. The incredible thing about PACT is the students that the program is able to reach in various parts of the world. This can lead these young people to better opportunities and help these students build strong careers.
This past summer, the program was held at the University of Pennsylvania for the first time. For Summer 2024, Rajiv Gandhi is hoping to make the in-program component larger. Due to the success of PACT and his dedication to inspiring his students, Rajiv was presented the 2022 ACM-SIGACT Distinguished Service Award.
SI Neg. 83-14878. Date: na. Grace Murray Hopper at the UNIVAC keyboard, c. 1960. Grace Brewster Murray: American mathematician and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who was a pioneer in developing computer technology, helping to devise UNIVAC I. the first commercial electronic computer, and naval applications for COBOL (common-business-oriented language). Credit: Unknown (Smithsonian Institution)
Early Years and Academic Prowess
Born in 1906 in the bustling heart of New York City, Grace Murray Hopper emerged as a trailblazing figure in the world of computer science. Her academic journey began at Vassar College, where she graduated in 1928 with degrees in Mathematics and Physics. Hopper furthered her education with a Master’s in Mathematics from Yale in 1930, later becoming a pioneering force in the male-dominated field.
Service in the U.S. Navy during World War II
During World War II, Hopper’s commitment to service led her to join the U.S. Navy after the Pearl Harbor bombing. Trained intensively at the Midshipmen’s School for Women at Smith College, she was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. Here, she worked on the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (MARK 1), contributing to top-secret calculations vital for the war effort, such as rocket trajectories and anti-aircraft gun tables.
Revolutionizing Computer Science: FLOW-MATIC and COBOL
Post-war, Hopper continued her groundbreaking work, transitioning to the burgeoning field of computer science. In 1953, she proposed the revolutionary idea of writing programs in words rather than symbols. This concept led to the creation of FLOW-MATIC in 1956, the first programming language using word commands and heralded as a “user-friendly language.” Her groundbreaking efforts culminated in the development of COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) in 1959, a milestone that revolutionized programming and became the most extensively used computer language globally by the 1970s.
Legacy Beyond the Screen: Teaching and Consulting
US Navy computer ctrs. Commodre Grace Hopper in her office.(Photo by Cynthia Johnson/Getty Images)
Despite the challenges faced by women in her era, Hopper’s legacy endured. She turned down a full professorship at Vassar to continue her work with computers, eventually becoming a senior consultant at the Digital Equipment Corporation until her passing in 1992. Grace Hopper’s influence extended beyond her technological contributions, as she also dedicated herself to teaching and mentoring future generations of computer scientists at institutions such as the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at Penn and George Washington University. Her indelible mark on the digital landscape and commitment to education continue to inspire generations in the ever-evolving world of computing.
“I think we consistently…underestimate what we can do with computers if we really try.”
In the past year, the Department of Computer and Information Science has welcomed an unprecedented number of academic professionals to join Penn’s faculty. One of the Assistant Professor’s who has joined both CIS and ESE this past Fall is Mingmin Zhao, an MIT graduate with a PhD focusing on building wireless sensing systems with artificial intelligence.
The collaboration between CIS and a number of departments at Penn is what encouraged Zhao to further his research and teaching career here.
“Penn provides a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research not only within the CIS department but also with other departments, including ESE, medical school, nursing school, etc.” said Zhao, “I am very excited about collaborating with people at Penn and working on highly-impactful interdisciplinary research.”
Zhao’s research interests include building wireless sensing systems that can capture a human’s functionality through physical surfaces. He explains that his research “uses machine learning to interpret and analyze wireless reflections to detect humans through walls, track their movements, and recognize their actions, enabling a form of x-ray vision.”
“Through-Wall Human Pose Estimation Using Radio Signals” Mingmin Zhao, Tianhong Li, Mohammad Abu Alsheikh, Yonglong Tian, Hang Zhao, Antonio Torralba, Dina Katabi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
With these wireless sensing systems, he has also developed a way for healthcare professionals to track a person’s functions including sleep, respiration, and heart rate. “These technologies allow us to continuously and without contact monitor people’s health without wearable sensors or physical contact with the user.” In the startup he joined after graduating, Zhao stated that they are building upon his own research to “work with pharmaceutical companies to run clinical trials in people’s homes.”
“Learning Sleep Stages from Radio Signals: A Conditional Adversarial Architecture” Mingmin Zhao, Shichao Yue, Dina Katabi, Tommi Jaakkola, Matt Bianchi, MIT & Massachusetts General Hospital
When asked about what made him passionate about the work that he does, Zhao explained that he is passionate about developing sensing tech that focuses on better understanding humans and their wellbeing.
“New sensing technologies (e.g., contactless monitoring of physiological signals) could help doctors understand various diseases and how patients are doing after taking medications,” said Zhao. “They could enable new digital health and precision medicine solutions that improve people’s life.”
Mingmin Zhao is currently teaching CIS 7000 focusing on wireless mobile sensing and building AIoT (Artificial-intelligence Internet of Things) systems. He is looking forward to educating his students to apply what they have learned in building “hardware-software systems” to solving practical problems that can impact the world.
On Friday, February 3rd, the fourth annual Women in Data Science Conference was held in Perry World House welcoming speakers from Zillow, TikTok, and Party City. For the first time since the pandemic, attendees joined us on campus for in-person talks showcasing the latest advances in data science, speaker Q&A sessions, and networking opportunities.
The C.I.S. Department was represented by Weiss Professor of Computer and Information Science, Susan Davidson, MSE Data Science Student, @sukanyajoshi, and NYU Computer Science and Engineering and Data Science Associate Professor, Julia Stoyanovich.
Thank you to all of the Wharton and Penn Engineering Students who attended this incredible conference!
The WIDS 2023 Conference was held at UPenn’s Perry World HouseDATS students getting excited for the conference!Keynote Speaker: Aimee Johnson, Former CMO of Zillow with Mary Purk Executive Director, Wharton AI & Analytics for BusinessSusan Davidson, Weiss Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of PennsylvaniaJulia Stoyanovich Associate Professor of Computer Science & Engineering and of Data Science, Director of the Center for Responsible AI, New York UniversityHigh School Students from Penn’s Summer Data Science ProgramSukanya Joshi MSE Data Science StudentWomen in Data Science Conference Co-Chairs, Susan Davidson, Mary Purk, and Linda ZhaoSukanya Joshi and Staci Kaplan, DATS Program Manager
A celebrated interdisciplinary event, WiDS @ Penn welcomed academic, industry, and student speakers from across the data science landscape to celebrate its diversity, both in subject matter and personnel.
University of Pennsylvania, by Beeple (prompt generated by Yuxin Meng)
So far in this semester, our department blog has talked about the growths in our labs and our faculty members careers. We have touched on the incredible seminars that have been taking place as well as the exciting research projects that our students are involved in. The blog’s overall purpose is to showcase the technological strides that Penn Engineering is making as well as the significant academic achievements of our faculty and student body. The C.I.S. blog is also a platform that strives to implement humanity and relatability to those who are a part of the Penn community and those outside of the University.
As many of you may know, DALL-E 2 developed by OpenAI was launched in April of this year and has just recently been made available to anyone. You get an allowance of free credits that enable you to type in a detailed description of anything that comes to mind and the machine learning models generate digital images that reflect the prompt. We were interested in the combination between artificial intelligence and the ability to generate realistic images using human ingenuity.
DALL-E is a great example of AI and human collaboration working to break barriers and expand horizons through artistic creativity. This platform also gives people the ability to play and be as out there and imaginative as they want. All in all, DALL-E gives us the opportunity to have fun and explore our hobbies, interests, and studies in the form of art. To showcase this AI system and what it can do I had asked all students from the C.I.S. department, from Undergrad to Ph.D., to send in the descriptions that they prompted and to have fun with it.
With that being said, this Gallery of DALL-E generated art was made possible by some of our wonderful students in the C.I.S. Department!
Ani Petrosyan, she/her
Computer Science major, 2026
Purple mountains with Armenian waterfalls
"I am an international student from Armenia. It's a very mountainous country, with waterfalls and wonderful nature. One fun fact about me: most of the dreams I see have purple color in them, so I am dreaming of my country and seeing it in purple.
A.B.
Edward Hu, he/him
Ph.D. in Robot Learning
A. Bob Ross in the style of Picasso uncanny unreal engine
"Bob Ross is an iconic painter, so I would like AI painters to pay homage to him."
B. Darth Vader cooking in Hell's Kitchen
"Hell's Kitchen is one of my favorite shows. I think Darth Vader's past with high heat and pressure scenarios would make him an excellent contestant."
A.B.C.
Yuxin Meng, she/her
MCIT, 2024
A. Hacker, another dimension, digital art
"This one was intended to be "software engineer..." or "coding in..." but these keywords seemed to be less instructive compared to "hacker". I wanted to see us working on the same thing in another universe."
B. Bionic sheep, blueprints
"Love the book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Electric sheep in the book look like real sheep, so I guess bionic is proper."
C. In lab, machine reading brain, codes on computer science, digital, by Beeple
"Not so much what I pictured in my mind. I've been obsessed with Pantheon (science fiction drama) recently. Briefly, I expected a picture of machine scanning human brain as code."
Rotem Dror, she/her
Postdoc in the Cognitive Computation Group
Two computers compete in a running competition
"I needed an image for my job talk presentation that would show two models competing who are going to be state of the art. My research involves developing statistical methods for comparing NLP models to determine which is better."
A.B.C.D.
Hannah Gonzalez, she/her
MSE and BSE in Computer Science, 2023
A. A red fox surfing The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
B. Huskies sledding in Alaska by Monet
C. Macro 35mm film photography of a floating otter wearing a space suit with the Van Gogh "Starry Night" painted background
D. An Andy Warhol style painting of a corgi winking
Gaoxiang Luo, he/him
Ph.D. in Machine Learning
"I generated an image using my hobbies as keywords: cat, guitar, and latte art. I was very impressed and surprised that the AI considered the cat element as latte art!"
This year’s Halloween celebration for Penn Engineering was a great success! Held in Quain Courtyard this past Monday, October 31, students, staff, and faculty gathered for trick or treating, hot apple cider and hot chocolate, and a costume contest. There was a great turn out of students coming in between classes and during their lunch break. In addition, incredibly decorated tables from each department covered the courtyard and there was wonderful staff participation. Even some faculty members came out in costume! It was a great experience interacting with students for some spooky and relaxing fun!
Scroll down to see the department tables and awesome costumes that came out for another fun year of Halloween festivities!
Many students and faculty alike may recognize the face above as Osbert Bastani. Well that’s because this Assistant Professor is not a new member of the Penn Engineering team. Osbert joined the Computer and Information Science Department as a Research Assistant Professor in 2018 specializing in programming languages and machine learning.
“Penn has a great group of faculty working on interesting research problems, and they are all incredibly supportive of junior faculty. I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with Penn CIS faculty in a range of disciplines, from programming languages to NLP to theory, and I hope to have the chance to collaborate with many more.” (Osbert Bastani)
Osbert actually began his research career in programming languages. This major challenge in this research is “verifying correctness properties for software systems deployed in safety-critical settings.” He explains that because machine learning is progressively being incorporated into these systems, it has become a greater challenge facing verification. In his research, he is tackling this overarching question; “How can one possibly hope to verify that a neural network guiding a self-driving car correctly detects all obstacles?” While there has been progress made in trustworthy machine learning, there is still a long road ahead to finding solid solutions.
His enthusiasm in working with the Ph.D. students on various topics and research projects is what he has looked forward to most as he entered into this new role in his teaching career at the start of this Fall semester. Since the school year began, he has been teaching Applied Machine Learning (CIS 4190/5190) with Department Chair, Zachary Ives. When asked about how the semester is going Osbert replied:
“I’ve been very fortunate to have strong students with very diverse interests, meaning I’ve had the opportunity to learn a great deal from them on a variety of topics ranging from convex duality for reinforcement learning to graph terms in linear logic. An incoming PhD student and I are now learning about diffusion models in deep learning, which are really exciting!” (Osbert Bastani)
While teaching, Osbert is also involved in several research projects that are dealing with trustworthy machine learning within real-world settings. One project that raises several questions about fairness and interpretability includes “building a machine learning pipeline to help allocate limited inventories of essential medicines to health facilities in Sierra Leone.” In addition, during a summer internship at Meta, one of Osbert’s students has been in the process of “developing deep reinforcement learning algorithms that can learn from very little data by pretraining on a huge corpus of human videos.”
Osbert Bastani wears many hats in the CIS Department. Not only is he involved in teaching and research projects with students, he is also a member of several groups within the department. Those include PRECISE, PRiML, PLClub, and the ASSET Center and he encourages all students to attend the seminars that each club holds and get the opportunity to learn about research in their areas or outside of their own.
Just as Osbert works to problem solve within the classroom and in his research, he does just about same outside of work as well! He expresses that he is an avid board game player and frequents the restaurant just down the street from Penn called “The Board and Brew”. He and his wife have played through the restaurant’s entire collection of the game “Unlock!”. The Board and Brew has great food and several hundred games to choose from. It is highly recommended by Osbert himself!
As the School of Engineering and Applied Science grows, so do the rooms that house all of the creative minds within our departments. Just in time for the Fall 2022 semester, two labs that are a part of the C.I.S. Department and are located in the Moore Building have gotten a makeover this past summer and the faculty and students are thrilled. The Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL) in Moore 100 and The SIG Center for Computer Graphics in Moore 103 have both undergone renovations for more student space to collaborate, create and liven up the space!
Cheryl Hickey, the Administrative/Event Coordinator in C.I.S., collaborated with the directors of the labs and a design team. She was tasked with choosing the furniture, color scheme, and layout that would best suit the space and the students. The Distributed Systems Lab received all new desks as well as a redone kitchen area for faculty and students. Jonathan M. Smith, Olga and Alberico Pompa Professor of C.I.S. said, “The DSL renovation allow for maximum flexibility in placement of student desks and experiments. Moving the network drops into the DSL machine room freed up space in the main areas for scholarly interaction and increased physical security.” The lab now encourages students to work together within the space better than ever before.
The Distributed Systems Laboratory (Moore Hall 100)
“The DSL renovation is nicely done and timely. I know many of our students really appreciate the new space. The new desks are superb. These days, when I walk past DSL, I’m pleased to see many students interacting with each other. The vibrancy and bustle are back in DSL! Our DSL seminars have also been packed with faculty and students listening to each other’s research. Nothing beats in-person interactions, and the best ideas happen when students talk and iterate through ideas in close proximity.” (Boon Thau Loo, Director of DSL)
Students have noticed the changes to the DSL lab as well since they began the semester just over a month ago. Jess Woods, a C.I.S. PhD being advised by Sebastian Angel, stated that, “It’s nice having our own functional cabinets/lockers. There are more desks and less clutter, which seems to encourage more people to come to campus to work, which makes the environment more collaborative and productive”. Having a space post-Covid that is inviting and open for all students to take advantage of is incredibly positive for the department.
While a part of the SIG Center for Computer Graphics is fully renovated as of this past summer, the lab is still continuing to grow. New technologies are in the works in addition to a couple of new faculty members who will be officially joining the department this coming Spring 2023 semester. Incoming assistant professor in Computer Graphics, Lingjie Liu, stated that there will be many upgrades to the space and equipment including GPU clusters and data storage space in support of research development.
Upon her arrival to Penn Engineering, Lingjie will “we will also purchase and set up a multi-view volumetric camera capture stage for capturing human motions and human-object interactions with multiple synchronized cameras (about 40 cameras).” This set of equipment will be an addition to the labs’ Vicon 16-camera motion capture system.
“The research focus of the new SIG Lab will be developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for perceiving, understanding, and interacting with 3D objects, people, and environments. Specifically, we will pursue three research goals: (1) High-quality reconstruction of real-world scenes from sparse RGB (camera) images; (2) Photo-realistic image synthesis of real-world scenes with 3D control; and (3) Large-scale 3D scene generation for 3D machine learning tasks.
Lingjie states that the SIG Lab’s new research focus will be “developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for perceiving, understanding, and interacting with 3D objects, people, and environments.” There are three research goals that the lab will pursue which include:
High-quality reconstruction of real-world scenes from sparse RGB (camera) images
Photo-realistic image synthesis of real-world scenes with 3D control
Large-scale 3D scene generation for 3D machine learning tasks.
“We will approach these goals by designing new algorithms that incorporate AI advances into classical computer graphics methods. We believe that with the new research focus and the facilities upgrade, we will create new research achievements and continue the success of our SIG Lab.”
The SIG Center for Computer Graphics (Moore Hall 103)
The finished and fully furnished side of the SIG lab will now be filled with another incoming assistant professor of C.I.S. and ESE, Mingmin Zhao‘s students. “Working with the renovation and designer team was a pleasure, and the new lab is absolutely gorgeous. I am excited to attract and recruit more students and spend time with them in the new lab.”
While touring SIG lab earlier this month, there were several students hard at work and raved about how much they enjoy spending time in the space. One PhD student who is being advised by Mingmin, Gaoxiang Luo, said, “The renovation of Moore 103B is way beyond my expectation. The workspace shelves allow us to store electronic components, while the wall pegboard allows us to hang tools. While the space is large enough for us to conduct wireless experiments using radar with a certain distance, the ESD flooring further ensures our safety. It’s also worth mentioning that I love the ergonomic height-adjustable desk and chair, which is particularly useful for our health as we work with our computer frequently nowadays.”
It is incredible to see the impact that this renovation has had on the students and faculty. The department is looking forward to seeing the work and successes that come out of these two labs for this new generation of students in Penn Engineering!
