NYU Computer Science News

Mark Rich has received an honorable mention in the CRA (Computing Research Association) Undergraduate Research Awards. Mark's project, carried out under the advisement of Prof. Lakshmi Subramanian, involved building a city-level traffic congestion detection and mitigation system that computes real-time traffic densities, based on data from noisy traffic cameras at different locations within a city. The system uses a belief network to interpret and integrate the data, and then leverages this information to accurately predict traffic congestion levels and potentially mitigate traffic jams. Mark is a senior with a double major in Economics and a joint major in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Craig Kapp has received an Outstanding Teacher Award for 2013.

Chris Bregler's work on applying motion capture technology to detecting terrorist activities in videos of crowds is featured in an article in the online Scientific American. Link

Zvi Kedem has received the Outstanding Contribution to ACM award for his leadership in rebuilding the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) as a modern cognitive map of the computing field for the worldwide computing community. As editor-in-chief, Kedem managed the effort to revise and automate the key component that underlies the ACM Digital Library's search index infrastructure. Link

Evan Korth discusses hacking in a PBS OffBook video. Link.

The work of George Williams, of the NYU Movement Lab, on automated analysis of facial expressions of fans in a sports stadium is featured in Time Magazine's "10 Ideas That Make A Difference". Link. Scan.

The NYUAD International Hackathon for Social Good in the Arab World took place on Feb. 21-25. More than 80 students from 16 countries participated. The Hackathon was founded and is organized by Prof. Sana' Odeh. Congratulations to all involved! Link  News Story

NYU has announced the launching of an initiative in Data Science and Statistics. The university-wide effort includes the creation of the Center for Data Science, the first such program in the United States. Prof. Yann LeCun is Director of the Center. The Center will have a masters degree program, accepting students for the fall of 2013, and plans to have a doctoral program starting at a later date. Link

A New York Times retrospective on graphics in 2012 features four projects from Chris Bregler's Motion Capture Lab: "Olympics Diving", "Olympics One with the Water", "What Romney and Obama's Body Language Says to Voters", and "Connecting Music and Gesture (The Maestro's Mojo, Alan Gilbert and the NY Philharmonics)". Link

The Entrupy system, developed by Lakshmi Subramanian and Ashlesh Sharma, for labelling works of art against counterfeiting, is featured in Forbes magazine as one of "Four Disruptive Technologies to Watch in 2013". Link

The Movement Lab and Digitas have announced a partnership program to co-create 3D Motion Capture Brand Experiences. Link

Claudio Silva has been named a fellow of IEEE and Keith Ross has been named a fellow of ACM. Claudio and Keith are affiliated faculty members and professors at NYU-Poly. Links: Claudio and Keith

A front page article in NY Times discusses progress in deep learning and cites Yann LeCun's research. Link. A radio interview with Yann on NPR is posted here: Link