Computer Science and Software Engineering Newsletter
I am pleased to report that our three undergraduate programs – computer science, software engineering and wireless engineering – have received reaccreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Our next ABET visit will be in fall 2016. I would like to express my appreciation to our industrial advisory board, faculty, staff, students and administration for their unified support and collaboration through this process.
We have two new faculty members: Myoung An, associate research professor, and Munawar Hafiz, assistant professor. An has more than 20 years of experience in industry and specializes in Clifford algebra, time-frequency representation, invariant embedding and image and signal processing. She earned a doctorate in mathematics from the City University of New York. Hafiz comes to us from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a doctorate in computer science. Hafiz’s expertise is in secure software design and program transformations. We are extremely pleased with the addition of these two new faculty members.
It is hard to believe that I have been the department chair for five years (2006-11)! With the strong support of our faculty members, I was re-elected for a second term of five years. I would like to express my gratitude to all members of the computer science and software engineering (CSSE) family. While we have gone through – and are still in – a difficult budget situation, we continue to grow in many aspects because of our collective efforts. Our undergraduate enrollment has rebounded from 326 in 2006 to 462 in 2011, and our research expenditures have improved from $1.5 million in 2006 to more than $2.5 million in 2010. During this time, we also moved from Dunstan Hall to the Shelby Center. The move provided the department a much needed boost in morale and everything else!
As we look forward to the next five years, CSSE is positioned for continuous improvement in its educational and research programs.
War Eagle!
Kai Chang
Spring 2011 award recognitionsThis spring, the college recognized the following distinguished CSSE faculty, students and alumni: Fred H. Pumphrey Outstanding Pre-Engineering Student Awards (4.0 GPA) |
Design of a virtual experimentation platform for middle school science instructionHari Narayanan is collaborating with researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Kansas State University and Bentley University to design a virtual experimentation platform for middle school science instruction. The project is supported by a $1.5 million grant to the four institutions from the Institute of Educational Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. In June, the team was also awarded a $500,000 grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation through the Next Generation Learning Challenges Program. "This project will help introduce students to computational tools," said Narayanan, whose research has previously been supported by the National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research. "It will have an interface customized to children for building and running virtual experiments, embedded inside an interactive learning environment for reading, writing and explaining physics phenomena." The project is designed to draw on the strengths of each partner institution. Auburn will lead computer science research and development, leveraging Narayanan’s expertise in human-computer interaction and educational technology. CSSE doctoral student Sundeep Myneni will design and engineer the system. The researchers hope to carry out several design and test cycles prior to making the system available for national dissemination. About 1,200 middle school students in Madison and Milwaukee are expected to be using this educational technology by the end of next year. |
Giving to Computer Science and Software Engineering:
Time and time again, we hear from industry leaders, agencies and graduate schools that Auburn engineers are different. They possess a work ethic and understanding of engineering principles that sets them apart. They are simply the kind of engineers that people are looking for. And their common experience is their Auburn Engineering education – an experience that you share.
The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering is committed to providing an engineering education that prepares students for successful careers; and we do this in large part because of the private support of our alumni and friends. These contributions provide crucial funding for scholarships and fellowships, faculty support and program enhancements. Please consider making a gift to your area of interest within the department or to the CSSE Industrial Advisory Board Endowed Scholarship. Your gift will provide future CSSE students a college experience that changes their lives as well.
Read More>>
