VT Department of Computer Science
Highlights: April-June 2020

1. PhD student Negin Forouzesh received the Graduate Student of the Year award from the Graduate School.
2. MS (now PhD) student Kobla Setor Zilevu received the William Preston Society Master's Thesis Award in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics from the Graduate School.
3. PhD student Jamie Davis was recognized with second place in the 2020 Grand Finals of the ACM Student Research Competition.
4. PhD student Jiameng Pu won the Visa Research Scholarship awarded by IEEE Security & Privacy 2020.
5. Several VT faculty were listed among the top researches in a "Ranking for Computer Science & Electronics" published by Guide2Research, led by Wenjing Lou at #387 in the nation.
6. The AI 2000 rankings of scholars in various computing fields includes (at least) two CS faculty members in the top 100: Bimal Viswanath (#55 in Computer Networking) and Naren Ramakrishnan (#88 in Data Mining)
7. Daphne Yao gave invited talks to the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative (FIGI) security working group and to the Women in Data Sciences (WiDS) Workshop.
8. Daphne Yao gave a keynote at the IEEE CPS Security Workshop.
9. Kurt Luther will give the keynote at the 4th IEEE Workshop on Human-in-the-Loop Methods and Future of Work in BigData (IEEE HMData 2020).
10. Papers accepted in top conferences:
    • Bowman, IEEE VR 2020
    • Butt, CCGrid 2020 (2 papers)
    • Butt, IEEE Cloud 2020
    • Kelliher, ISEA 2020
    • Luther, IJCAI 2020
    • Nikolopoulos, MICRO 2020
    • Nikolopoulos, CCGrid 2020
11. Papers accepted in top journals:
    • Bowman, IEEE Trans. on Visualization and Computer Graphics
    • Butt, IEEE Trans on Parallel & Distributed Computing (2 papers)
    • Chen & Cho, IEEE Trans on Network and Service Management
    • Cho, IEEE Trans on Network and Service Management
    • Esakia & McCrickard, Intl Jnl of Human-Computer Studies
    • Kelliher, ACM Trans on Computer-Human Interaction
    • Lu, IEEE Trans in Big Data
    • Lu & Reddy, ACM Trans on Knowledge Discovery from Data
    • Nikolopoulos, Future Generation Computer Systems (2 papers)
    • Nikolopoulos, Parallel Computing
    • Reddy & Ramakrishnan, IEEE Trans on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
    • Ramakrishnan, ACM Trans on Intelligent Systems and Technology
    • Wenskovitch & North, IEEE Computer

New Funding (with CS PI)

1. Zhang, NSF, "Frameworks: Developing CyberInfrastructure for Waterborne Antibiotic Resistance Risk Surveillance", $1,299,036
2. Ramakrishnan, NSF, "Expeditions: Global Pervasive Computational Epidemiology", $1,587,064.
3. Ramakrishnan, NSF, "CINES: A Scalable Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Innovation in Network Engineering and Science", $498,379
4. Karpatne, NSF, "Exploring Physics Guided Machine Learning for Accelerating Sensing and Physical Sciences," $54,452.
5. North, NSF, "SAGE3: Smart Amplified Group Environment for Harnessing the Data Revolution," $500,000.
6. North, NCSU, "Immersive Space to Think: 3D VR/AR Space for Sensemaking of Textual Data," $103,711.
7. Eldardiry, Adobe, "Graph time-series deep learning for dynamic cloud resource forecasting & optimization," $10,000.
8. Sandu, NSF, "Transforming Reduced-Order Models of Fluids with Data Assimilation," $200,000.
9. Feng, NSF, "RAPID: Higher Accuracy and Availability of COVID-19 Testing and Monitoring via Post-CT Image Boosting and Analysis," $150,000.
10. Feng, NSF, "RAPID: A Computational Deep-Learning Approach for Fast, Accurate CT Testing and Monitoring of COVID-19," $200,000.
11. Cho, ARO, "Foureye: Cyber Defensive Deception based on Hypergame Theory for Tactical Networks," $285,000.
12. Lu, SEBCSI, "Advanced Analytics for High-Performance Metro Security Monitoring," $150,000.
13. Lu, US Army Corps of Engineers, "Intelligent Threat Detection in Geospatial Contexts," $90,000.
14. Lou, ARO, "Security and Compliance of Cognitive Radio Devices in Spectrum Sharing Networks,” $354,999

Professional Service, Recognition, and Outreach

1. Roxanne Paul received the NCR Outstanding Staff Award.
2. Kurt Luther named Senior Member of the ACM
3. Kurt Cameron received a College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research
4. Margaret Ellis received a College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching
5. Tanu Mitra received a College Award for Outstanding New Assistant Professor
6. Eli Tilevich received the Department Outstanding Contribution in Teaching Award.
7. Godmar Back received the Department Outstanding Contribution in Faculty Service Award.
8. Tonisha Montgomery and Ryan Underwood received the Department Outstanding Contribution in Administrative Service Award.
9. Cliff Shaffer received an Excellence in Access and Inclusion award from VT's Office of Services for Students with Disabilities.
10. Wenjing Lou served as Technical Program Chair for ACM WiSec 2020.
11. C.T. Lu will serve as General Co-Chair for ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2020 and 2021.
12. Ali Butt will serve as co-chair for Cloud & Distributed Systems at SC 2020.
13. John Wenskovitch co-organized a session on "Machine Learning and Visualization: Bracing for Data Deluge in Astronomy" at the 2020 European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting.
14. Aisling Kelliher joined the Editorial Board of the "Multimodal Technologies and Interaction" journal.

PhD Students Successfully Defending

1. Hang Hu, "Characterizing and Detecting Online Deception via Data-Driven Methods", Wang and Yao (co-chairs)
2. Ruide Zhang, "Security and Privacy in Internet of Things," Lou (chair)
3. Bijaya Adhikari, "Domain-based Frameworks and Embeddings for Dynamics over Networks," Prakash (chair)
4. Peeratham Techapaloku, "Enhancing Block-Based Programming Infrastructure and Pedagogy to Promote the Culture of Quality From the Ground Up," Tilevich (chair)
5. Zheng Song, "Self-Adaptive Edge Services: Enhancing Reliability, Efficiency, and Adaptiveness under Unreliable, Scarce, and Dissimilar Resources," Tilevich (chair)
6. Nathaniel Lahn, "A Separator-Based Framework for Graph Matching Problems," Raghvendra (chair)
7. Tyler Chang, "Mathematical Software for Multiobjective Optimization Problems," Watson (chair)
8. Mohammad Islam, "Detecting and Mitigating Rumors in Social Media," Ramakrishnan (chair)
9. Moeti Masiane, "Insight Driven Sampling for Interactive Data Intensive Computing," North (chair)
10. Steven Glandon, "Time Integration Methods for Large-scale Scientific Simulations," Sandu (chair)
11. Luke Gusukuma, "Misconception Driven Student Analysis Model: Applications of a Cognitive Model in Teaching Computing," Kafura (chair)
12. Negin Forouzesh, "Efficient Biomolecular Computations Towards Applications in Drug Discovery," Onufriev (chair)
13. Noha Elsherbiny, "Applying Curricular Alignment to Improve the Effectiveness of CS Education," Edwards (chair)
14. Aditya Pratapa, "Algorithms for regulatory network inference and experiment planning in systems biology," Murali (chair)
15. Sajal Dash, "Exploring the Landscape of Big Data Analytics through Domain-Aware Algorithm Design," Feng (chair)
16. Tianyi Li, "Solving Mysteries with Crowds: Supporting Crowdsourced Sensemaking with a Modularized Pipeline and Context Slices," North and Luther (co-chairs)
17. Amogh Jalihal (GBCB PhD), "Mathematical modeling of macronutrient signaling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae," Murali & Tyson (co-chairs)

Other Notables

1. Daphne Yao gave a webinar on imposter syndrome and research.