VT Department of Computer Science
Highlights: April-June 2024

Publications, Scholarship, and Teaching and Research Recognitions
  1. Matthew Hicks was named CACI Faculty Fellow in Cyber Security
  2. Anuj Karpatne, Deb Bhattacharya, and Xuan Wang each received high-end computing allocations from the new NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) program. Anuj was invited to present on his work at the White House.
  3. Wu Feng has been appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Nuclear Theory
  4. Wu Feng was the keynote speaker at the 23rd IEEE International Workshop on High Performance Computational Biology (HiCOMB)
  5. Sang Won Lee and his students received an honorable mention best paper award at the ACM Conference on Creativity & Cognition, for their paper "SHARP: Exploring Version Control Systems in Live Coding Music."
  6. PhD student Qi Zhang received the best research short paper award at CAPWIC 2025. Qi is advised by Jin-Hee Cho.
  7. Hoda Eldardiry is a co-holder on three recently granted patents.
  8. Papers accepted in top conferences:
  9. Papers accepted in top journals:

New External Funding (with CS PI)

  1. Bhattacharya, NIH, "GPU-accelerated high-performance computing to supercharge foundational deep learning method development for scalable and accurate prediction of protein structures," $240,509.
  2. Brown, Sloan Foundation, "Designing and Implementing Automated Solutions to Promote Software Engineering Best Practices in Research Software Development," $140,173.
  3. Butt, General Dynamics Mission Systems, "Prototype Enterprise Information Technology Architecture Design & Roadmap," $50,000. Practices in Research Software Development," $140,173.
  4. Cho, CCI, "From Data to Defense: Designing Social Cyber Vulnerability Measures to Protect Older Adults Online," $25,000.
  5. Eldardiry, NSF, "Exploring How AI Engineers Perceive and Develop Translational Ethical Competency," $349,360.
  6. Eldardiry, eBay, " Heterogeneous Hypergraph Modeling for Zero-shot Product Aspect Identification," $100,000.
  7. Ellis, NSF, "Testing the Effects of Peer Discussion," $62,794.
  8. Sandu, NSF, "Hybrid Time Integration Algorithms for Co-Simulation of Multiscale Multiphysics Systems," $420,000.
  9. Thomas, CCI, "Fortifying the Foundation: Bolstering Safety and Trust in Multimodal Foundation Models Through Risk, Attack, and Defense Analysis," $75,000.
  10. Thomas, Carilion Innovation, "Instreyed: Advancing Fine-grained Data-limited Visual Recognition for Smart Surgical Tray Management," $15,000.
  11. Viswanath, CCI, "Defending Against Malicious LLM-Driven Agents Utilized for Online Abuse Directed at At-Risk Communities," $50,000.
  12. Zhou, NSF, "CAREER: Long-Tailed Learning in the Open and Dynamic World: Theories, Algorithms, and Applications, $600,000.

Professional Service, Recognition, and Outreach

  1. Naren Ramakrishnan and Barbara Ryder were named AAAS Fellows.
  2. Sally Hamouda received the Department Outstanding Contributions in Teaching Award.
  3. Sara Hooshangi received the Department Outstanding Contributions in Faculty Service Award.
  4. Teresa Hall received the Department Outstanding Contributions in Administrative Service Award.
  5. Paige Johnson received the Department Outstanding Contributions in Administrative Service Award.
  6. Huaicheng Li received the Department Rising Star Faculty Award.
  7. Dimitrios Nikolopoulos was appointed to the Advisory Board for National Research Institutes in Greece.
  8. Dimitrios Nikolopoulos is chairing the steering committee of the ACM International Conference on Supercomputing.
  9. Wu Feng is serving as program co-chair of IEEE Cluster 2024.
  10. C-T Lu is serving as general co-chair of IEEE BigData 2024, to be held in Washington, DC. Xuan Wang will serve as Undergraduate and HS Symposium co-Chair for this conference. The program committee includes Ali Butt, Jin-Hee Cho, Wu Feng, and Xuan Wang.
  11. Jin-Hee Cho is serving on the program committee of ACSAC 2024.
  12. Peng Gao is serving on the program committee of LAMPS 2024, IEEE S&P 2025, PETS 2025, and NDSS 2025.
  13. Bo Ji is serving as co-chair of Artificial Intelligence Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Complex Systems (AIMACCS) Workshop 2024, as area chair for IEEE INFOCOM 2025, and as general co-chair of the Workshop on Modeling and Optimization for Semantic Communications (MOSC) 2024.
  14. Jin-Hee Cho, Sang Won Lee, and Lifu Huang organized a workshop on "AI for Social Good: Empowering Youth to Be Resilient Against Cybergrooming."
  15. Thang Hoang served as student travel grants chair for IEEE S&P 2024.
  16. Deb Bhattacharya is Serving on the program committee of ISMB 2024, ACM-BCB 2024, BIOKDD 2024, and IEEE-BIBM 2024.

PhD Students Successfully Defending

  1. Zhongdong Liu, "Data Freshness in Information-update Systems: Modeling, Scheduling, and Tradeoffs," Ji (chair).
  2. Ola Abdel-Raheem Mohammed Karajeh, "Improving Text Classification Using Graph-based Methods," Fox (chair).
  3. Abdulaziz Abdulrhman Alhamadani, "Integrated Predictive Modeling and Analytics for Crisis Management," Lu (chair).
  4. Jianfeng He, "Uncertainty Estimation on Natural Language Processing," Lu (chair).
  5. Harrison Williams, "Circuit Support for Practical and Performant Batteryless Systems," Hicks (chair).
  6. Jubayer Mahmod (ECE), "The Art of SRAM Security: Tactics for Remanence-based Attack and Strategies for Defense," Hicks (chair).
  7. Xiao Liang, "Computational Insights into Evolutionary Dynamics of Human and Primate Genes," Heath (chair).
  8. Jiaying Gong, " Few-Shot and Zero-Shot Learning for Information Extraction ," Eldardiry (chair).

Other Notables

  1. Steve Jian was promoted to associate professor with tenure, and Bob Edmison and Mohammed Seyam were promoted to collegiate associate professor.
  2. The most recent USN&WR CS graduate program rankings have VT at 36th.
Highlights from previous quarters