CSC eNewsletter - February 2021



Cisco Systems Makes Major Gift in Support of Department’s Cybersecurity Initiative

CybersecurityGlobal technology leaderand Super ePartner, Cisco Systems, and the Department of Computer Science at NC State University have long enjoyed a deep and sustained partnership over the decades. The partnership took a giant step forward this fall as Cisco has made a $250,000 unrestricted lead gift via the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in support of Dr. Laurie Williams and the Secure Computing Institute at NC State University. In particular, the unrestricted gift provides foundational funding to support the department’s mission to increase its role as a national leader in cybersecurity education and research, which has been forged by Drs. Williams, Will Enck, Douglas Reeves and Sarah Heckman. Read More »


NC State Student Creates App to Foster Community, Build Networks

Making friends in college is hard enough, but making friends in college during a pandemic can be nearly impossible. Rahul Yedida, a second-year Ph.D. student in computer science, recognized this struggle and decided he wanted to use his computer science skills to create a solution: NearConnect, a social media platform that uses GPS and location services to allow the user to connect with anyone around them who has the app. Read More »


Battestilli Recognized as a 2021 Equity for Women Award Nominee

Dr. Lina Battestilli

Dr. Lina Battestilli of the NC State Computer Science Department was recently nominated for the 2021 Equity for Women Awards at this year’s Sisterhood Celebration hosted by the NC State Council on the Status of Women. She was nominated in recognition of her efforts in increasing women’s representation and participation in technology and computer science, as well as for her involvement in the diversity efforts of the Computer Science Department. Read More »


Dr. Helen Gu Wins 10-Year Best Paper Award at SoCC ’20

The ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing 2020 (SoCC '20) recently awarded Dr. Xiaohui (Helen) Gu and co-authors, Zhiming Shen (Exotanium, Inc.), Sethuraman Subbiah (Amazon), and John Wilkes (Google), the 10-Year Best Paper Award for their paper “CloudScale: Elastic Resource Scaling for Multi-Tenant Cloud Systems”. This paper focuses on the CloudScale system and how it addresses challenges in prediction-driven elastic resource scaling with solutions including adaptive padding, fast under-estimation error correction, predictive migration, and integration with DVFS. Read More »


ACM ByteCast Presents Dr. Denae Ford

CSC alumna, Denae Ford, (PhD CSC ‘19), was recently featured on ACM’s ByteCast. Ford, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in the Software Analysis and Intelligence Team (SAINTes) group and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, relates how an undergraduate research project inspired her to pursue a PhD in computing. She describes her approach in designing various research studies, the process she used to identify challenges and barriers to engagement in communities such as StackOverflow and GitHub, and how she and her collaborators went about building interventions. They also discuss how some of these interventions can be applied by industry. Ford also shares some future directions and developments in computing that most excite her—and the possibilities in making the field more equitable and inclusive. Listen »


Martin-Vega Elected to National Academy of Engineering

Dean Louie Martin-VegaLouis Martin-Vega, Dean of the College of Engineering at NC State University, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Martin-Vega, who joined NC State in 2006, was elected “for support of engineering and engineering education through industry-academic collaboration and opportunities for underrepresented groups.” Read More »


NC State Student Manali Shirsekar Wins Girls in STEM Scholarship Award

Manali Shirsekar, a third-year studying computer science, won the 2020-2021 Girls in STEM Scholarship Award in recognition of her leadership and advocacy for minority participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers within the NC State community. Girls Who STEM, an organization focused on the education, empowerment and inclusion of women in STEM, presented the award. Read More »


Demand for CSC Talent High in Current Market

Great news for our current and prospective students. According to NACE’s Winter 2021 Salary Survey, the demand for computer science majors in the current job market is very strong, possibly due to our dependence on technology in the new “virtual world” we live and work in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The average new grad starting salaries for computer science graduates are projected to jump 7.1% this year. Read More »


NC State's 2021 'Day of Giving' Set for March 24th

2021 Day of Giving dateNC State's College of Engineering is helping address the grand challenges of the 21st century, including cybersecurity, renewable energy, personalized learning, nuclear nonproliferation and public health. As NC's flagship engineering college, we help to drive the local economy and provide a rewarding career path to many of our state's most gifted students. Your support is an investment in a sustainable future for our state, nation and world. Read More »


2020 Chancellor’s Annual Report

Read Chancellor Randy Woodson’s report of all the ways NC State continues to impact our world. The report includes facts and figures on everything from academic rankings to giving. Read More »


Select Departmental Gifts & Support

Cisco Systems has donated $20,000 to the department in support of the ePartners Program and the Sr Design Center, and $250,000 in support of the department’s Cybersecurity Initiative.

Skyward Federal has donated $5,150 to the department in support of the Sr Design Center.

Microsoft has donated $5,000 to the department in support of the Sr Design Center.

Epic Games has provided a faculty award of $50,000 to Dr. Arnav Jhala to support his research project “transVRse: Automatic Viewpoint Computation and Navigation support in Virtual Reality”.

Alum, Dr. Ioannis Papapanagiotou has recently established the Papapanagiotou Graduate Endowment to benefit graduate students in both ECE and CSC.

Retired professor, Dr. David McAllister, and his wife Nancy have made substantial cash and securities gifts to the department in support of their commitment to create the David F. and Nancy Cooke McAllister Graduate Endowment.


CSC Wolf Bytes

Our heartfelt condolences go out to our Department Head, Dr. Gregg Rothermel, on the recent passing of his mother.

Congratulations to alum, Sherri Braxton (MS CSC ’94), who was recently appointed Senior Director for Digital Innovation at Bowdoin College. Read More »


Follow the Department on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter!

 Alumni, students, faculty, staff, and corporate partners of the NC State Department of Computer Science, interested in networking to foster collaboration, entrepreneurship, partnerships, career development and professional growth are invited to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.


Personalized Job Search Agent in ePack

If you are a CSC student or recent graduate (within 12 months post-graduation) and would like to receive email notifications when new jobs are posted on ePack matching your profile, you can set up your own customized job search agent to receive just the postings you desire (intern vs. full time, etc). For a short video tutorial on how to create your own personalized job agent, click here.

The Alumni Association has partnered with the University Career Development Center to make ePACK available to NC State alumni. If you are a current Alumni Association member, update your online profile by visiting the Wolfpack Connect (alumni directory) and click on the ‘Update My Info’ tab on the upper right side of the page. Select the ‘Career Connections’ tab and then choose ‘yes’ beside the question, ‘Do you want access to ePACK?’

To access ePACK you must be a member of the Alumni Association and you must be an alumnus/alumnae of NC State. If you are not a member of the Alumni Association, you can join online. Once you have received an email confirming your membership, you will be able to register for access to ePACK.

Questions: Contact Manager of Alumni Career Services, Anna Velleggia at anna_velleggia@ncsu.edu

 

Sponsors

This eNewsletter is sponsored for the 2020-21 academic year by ePartner BCBS of NC, Lowes Home Improvement and VMware