Motivated by her experiences growing up with an older brother with Down Syndrome, Computer Science doctoral student Flannery Currin aims to go into a career to help people thrive. When she was younger, she anticipated entering a field like occupational therapy or speech-language pathology until she discovered an interest in computer science. Currin reconciled her desire to help those with disabilities and her interest in computer science by studying human-computer interaction at the University of Iowa.

In May, Levin Leesemann graduated with a BS in Computer Science along with minors in Music and Mathematics. Since he is pursuing a MCS degree as part of our U2G program, he will be at IOWA this coming academic year as well. During his senior year, he endeavored to meld his tenure on Hawkeye Marching Band Drumline1 and academic domains of predilection; advised by CS Chair, Prof. Alberto Segre. The result? A paper entitled: "Automated Drumline Rhythm and Instrument Recognition"

In this blog post, PhD student Hussam Habib (advised by Rishab Nithyanand) provides an overview of our work to understand whether dangerous online communities can be identified by their evolutionary characteristics. ______________________________________________________________ Title: “Are Proactive Interventions for Reddit Communities Feasible?” [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.11019.pdf] Authors: Hussam Habib (UIowa), Maaz Bin Musa (UIowa), Md. Fareed Zaffar (LUMS), Rishab Nithyanand (UIowa) Venue: AAAI International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2022)

Juan Pablo Hourcade, Associate Professor at The University of Iowa's Department of Computer Science and Director of Graduate Studies for the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Informatics, was recently appointed as one of ACM’s Distinguished Speakers.

Eric Pahl, Health Informatics PhD student and cofounder of OmniLife, a health technology communication and collaboration platform, recently received a $250,000 SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) | National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), which will support the “Transplants for Kids” project, which will use AI / machine learning algorithms to align optimal donor grafts with children awaiting liver transplants.

Prof. Hantao Zhang retired from the Computer Science Department on January 1, 2022. Please join us in wishing him a happy, healthy, and prosperous retirement.

... for a project entitled "Health Disparities and Machine Learning Community Feasibility" that proposes to develop equitable surveillance algorithms to get an accurate picture of large-scale epidemics. Specifically, team seeks to allocate surveillance kits (or tests) over time under budget constraints with the goals of obtaining an accurate picture of the spread while ensuring (i) Regional Equity and (ii) Demographic Fairness.

Kelsey Huebner discusses the future of the internet, metaverse, and AI. "Huebner went on to earn UI degrees in art and informatics while minoring in computer science. She also took advantage of career networking opportunities at Iowa and an internship in which her research helped children with autism improve their communication skills using multi-touch software developed by associate professor of computer science Juan Pablo Hourcade."

Anvay Pradhan of West Des Moines, Iowa, will graduate from Iowa in May with degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science. His research experiences have ranged from tribology to space physics instrumentation to industrial robotics.

University of Iowa fourth-year student Ben Stone designs applications that help the Iowa Reading Research Center collect data to evaluate the success of K-12 classroom interventions. [...] Stone is the lead computer programmer at the center, a role not usually held by undergraduates. He created an application that collects data to evaluate interventions meant to improve literacy in K-12 Iowa classrooms.