College of Computing and Informatics

Sen. Richard Burr was one of the keynote speakers for this year’s Cyber Security Symposium; he discusses the role of academia in the field of cyber security.

Jing Xiao, professor of computer science in the College of Computing and Informatics, is on the 2015 Robohub listing of “25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About.”

Xiao’s research spans robotics, haptics and intelligent systems. An IEEE Fellow, Xiao is site director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Robots and Sensors for Human Wellbeing. During her academic career, she has authored more than 130 publications in journals, books and for major robotics conferences, and she holds one patent.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 500 students, faculty and business people, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) praised UNC Charlotte for providing the educational programs and research to advance cyber protection and combat cyber terrorism.

The senator said cyber terrorism is one of the primary threats to national security, and he noted that the “number one (cyber) security concern” are everyday ploys by cyber terrorists that trick people into opening bogus emails that allow access to confidential information.

Junjie Shan and Jinyue Xia, doctoral students in the College of Computing and Informatics, recently took second place in HackNC 2015 at UNC Chapel Hill. Their creation “CrowdFood” was the second-best overall application at the 24-hour hack-a-thon.

The application was designed to help individuals find food quickly by estimating wait times for restaurants. Xia developed the iOS app that supported collecting and showing real-time user reports, while Shan created the Web app to display the reports. UNC Chapel Hill student Hongkun Ge provided development support.

Eric Saule, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department in the College of Computing and Informatics, will present the webinar “Toward Machine Oblivious Graph Analysis” at noon, Tuesday, Oct. 6. This event is part of the DataByte lunchtime webinar series sponsored by the National Consortium for Data Science (NCDS).

Saule, who also is an NCDS Fellow, will talk about his work to develop a framework for performing efficient graph analysis regardless of the type of analysis being performed or the computer system used.

Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, will deliver a keynote address during the College of Computing and Informatics 16th annual Cyber Security Symposium on Wednesday, Oct. 14. A dedicated executive education program will be on Thursday, Oct. 15.

Mohamed Shehab, an associate professor in the Department of Software and Information Systems in the College of Computing and Informatics, is the fourth finalist for the 2015 Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence being featured on Inside UNC Charlotte. The recipient will be named during a special awards ceremony on Friday, Sept. 18.

Yi Deng, dean of the College of Computing and Informatics, recently received the CIO Award for Academic Leadership from the Charlotte Business Journal.

Deng, along with a number of other Charlotte-area chief information officers, were recognized for “using information technology in innovative ways to optimize business processes, enable growth, create competitive advantages and improve customer experience.”

Public and private entities that fund biomedical research face difficult choices on how to allocate a finite level of capital, and scientists often take risks in selecting research topics multiple times in their academic careers. UNC Charlotte data scientist Lixia Yao, in a recently published article in Nature Biotechnology titled “Health ROI as a Measure of Misalignment of Biomedical Needs and Resources,” suggests a better method for those funding agencies and scientists.

Celine Latulipe, associate professor in the College of Computing and Informatics, talks about the launch of a new initiative to engage female students in computer science.