CS Education Week: December 9 - 15

Computer Science Education Week is observed each year, in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.  Please consider taking part in The Hour of Code.  Listen to President Obama's comments.  [December 2013]

Northwest Passage Operations

Dr. Qing Yang and Dr. Mike Wittie have received $198K from the Montana Department of Transportation to develop the NorthWest Passage (NWP) Operations and Travel Information Integration Sharing (OTIIS) system.  The project will enable safer and better-informed travel on roads in the northwest.  Congratulations!  [November 2013]

US Navy Phase I SBIR

The Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory (NISL) under the direction of Dr. John Sheppard has received a $26K Phase I SBIR with the US Navy.  Methods to capture and analyze data from automatic test equipment to predict future failures of electronic systems will be explored. The associated work is in conjunction with IEEE standardization efforts in electronic test and diagnosis. NISL is partnered with Qualtech Systems, Inc., a small business that provides diagnostic and health management tools and services.  [November 2013]

2013 ACM Regional Programming Contest

Brent Echols, Michael Manning and Michael Paulson represented the CS Department at the ACM Regional Programming Contest.  The team solved two problems at the Brigham Young University site, finishing 13th out of 37 teams.  Sponsorship was generously provided by WebFilings.  [October 2013]

IoE Continued Funding

Dr. Clem Izurieta (CS) and Dr. Geoff Poole (LRES) have received $47K in additional funding from the Institute on Ecosystems to continue their work on simulation modeling.  Congratulations!  [October 2013]

Faculty Vacancy

We are searching for one, possibly more, Assistant or Associate Professors to join our vibrant organization.  Vacancy Ad.  [October 2013]

John Holland Visit

On October 3rd, we are honored to host Dr. John Holland.  Dr. Holland has made seminal contributions to genetic algorithms and complex adaptive systems.  In 1992, Dr. Holland received a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of his work.  Dr. Holland will also receive a Stibitz Award from the American Computer & Robotics Museum.  Welcome!  [October 2013]

Demand Generation Initiatives

RightNow Technologies founder Greg Gianforte has pledged to give the CS Department more than $200,000 over three years to initiate three programs to recruit students into computer science and help meet the state’s demand for high-tech workers.  MSU Article.  [October 2013]

Cybix Systems Job Shop Scheduling Contest

Roughly speaking, your customers come to you with a certain number of jobs to do (with certain characteristics) and you try to get as many of them done as you can with the workers you have available. Each worker has a schedule and a skill set that can be applied to a job; jobs have a time window associated with their completion, etc. Each worker needs a work station to perform any task and there are only a certain number of them available. The winner of this contest will receive $2,500. If you would like to register and receive the full problem statement, including the problem data, please introduce yourself via email to: job_shop_problem_contest@cybixsystems.com. We look forward to seeing your creative solutions!  [September 2013]

ACM Local Programming Contest

The ACM Local Programming Contest was held on Saturday, September 28th.  14 teams (6 from MSU, 4 from Montana Tech, 3 from Carroll and 1 from Helena High) competed.  Michael Paulson and Brent Echols from MSU finished first.  Michael, Brent, Luiz Maya and Michael Manning will represent Montana State in the ACM Regional Programming Contest on Saturday, October 26th at Brigham Young University.   Contest Summary.  [September 2013]

2013 AUTOTESTCON Student Paper Awards

For the third year in a row, students in the CS Department's Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory (NISL) have been recognized for their research at the IEEE AUTOTESTCON conference. Nicholas Ryhajlo and Liessman Sturlaugson received the AUTOTESTCON Best Student Paper Award for their paper titled, "Diagnostic Bayesian Networks with Fuzzy Evidence." In addition, Liessman Sturlaugson, Nathan Fortier, and Patrick Donnelly received the AUTOTESTCON Runner Up Best Student Paper Award titled, "Implementing AI-ESTATE with Prognostic Extensions in Java." Both papers were co-authored by Dr. John Sheppard, advisor to all four students and director of NISL. AUTOTESTCON is the world's premier conference focusing on new technologies for military and aerospace automatic test systems. It is sponsored jointly by the IEEE Aerospace Electronic Systems Society and the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society.  [September 2013]

US Navy Contract

The Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory (NISL) under the direction of Dr. John Sheppard has had a contract option exercised under a Phase II STTR with the US Navy ($87,749), exploring approaches to combining physics-based and data-driven models for electronic fault prognostics. In addition to producing new tools and approaches to modeling electronic degradation and failure, this work is also having a direct impact on the revision of several IEEE standards that have been adopted by all three military services. NISL is partnered with Impact Technologies, a Sikorsky Innovations company.  [September 2013]

MSU Security Conference

MSU hosts a free security conference on Wednesday, September 25.  A workshop on Android Package Analysis occurs on September 24.  Although registration for the workshop is $100, MSU CS students may contact Rick Shattuck (shattuck AT montana DOT edu) to have this fee waived.  [September 2013]

CS Study Abroad Trip to Germany

The CS Department will conduct a study abroad trip to Germany during the first six week summer session of 2014.  If you are interested in learning more, please contact John Paxton.  More information.  [August 2013]

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grant

The Computer Science Department has received a two year, $100K grant from the USFWS.  The grant will provide funding for a visiting scholar to investigate the impact of human energy influences on the greater sage-grouse.  The work involves decision systems, databases, visualization and GIS analyses.  [August 2013]

Doctoral Symposium

Congratulations to Isaac Griffith, a Ph.D. student working under Dr. Clem Izurieta's supervision.  Isaac has received NSF funding to present his research at an IEEE/ACM Empirical Software Engineering Conference panel discussion that takes place in Baltimore in October.  [August 2013]

Fall 2013 Guest Professor

A big welcome to Christophe Lambert, founder and former CEO of Golden Helix, who will join the department this semester as a guest professor.  Dr. Lambert has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University.  He will teach CSCI 540, Advanced Database Systems.  His office is EPS 358.  [August 2013]

GSU Bound

Rafal Angryk is starting a new faculty position with Georgia State University this fall. There will be a farewell event later this semester to thank him for all the contributions he has made to our program and to wish him well in his new endeavors.  Stay tuned.  [August 2013]

2013 Summer REU Program

The CS Department welcomes the following students who are participating in an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site entitled, Research in Networking and Networks with Applications to Sustainability.  This year's participants are Evan Kleiner (Gardnerville, Nevada), Lucy Williams (Seattle, Washington), Adrienne Dunham (Auburn, Washington), Rachael Luhr (Miles City, Montana), Maggie McDonald (Burien, Washington), Jennifer Lemke (Redding, California), Christine Cunningham (Boston, Massachusetts), Zach Levonian (Onalaska, Wisconsin), Meagan Combs (Barrington, Illinois) and Tuan Le (Edgewood, Kentucky).  The REU program is led by Professors Brendan Mumey and Clem Izurieta.  [June 2013]

Google Summer of Code Internship

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Michael Schuh for being awarded a Google Summer of Code internship! Michael will implement a new indexing algorithm for PostgreSQL, a project related to his research under advisor Dr. Angryk in the Data Mining Lab.  [June 2013]

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Karthik Ganesan Pillai, who received a summer appointment to the Advanced Short Term Research Opportunity (ASTRO) Program at ORNL in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Dr. Raju Vatsavai will serve as Karthik's research mentor.  [May 2013]

2013 NASA Lunabotics

Montana State University finished 6th in this year's NASA Lunabotics competition.  The multidisciplinary team included Professor Hunter Lloyd and undergraduate Logan Warberg.   The team's entry won the Innovation Award.  Congratulations to all!  [May 2013]

University of Concepcion

Dr. Clem Izurieta visited the University of Concepcion in Chili during May and June to establish research connections and participate in a software engineering class.  The university featured Clem in a Spanish language article.  [May 2013]

NASA STTR

The Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory (NISL) under the direction of Dr. John Sheppard received a Phase I STTR contract with NASA ($42,000), exploring approaches to perform research in probabilistic and model-based risk and hazard analysis. NISL is partnered with Qualtech Systems, a provider of tools for model-based fault diagnosis and remote monitoring.  Congratulations!  [May 2013]

Faculty Position Available

The Computer Science Department invites qualified individuals to apply for an Assistant Professor position.  [May 2013]

2013 College of Engineering Awards

Shelly Shroyer received the COE Classified Employee Award for Excellence.  Shelly is the CS Department's accountant extraordinaire.  John Paxton received the COE Excellence in Teaching Award.  Congratulations!  [May 2013]

2013 Awards Ceremony

The following people received recognition at the end-of-the-year Computer Science awards ceremony.  Outstanding Teaching Assistants: Mike Schuh and Sean Yaw, Outstanding M.S. Researcher: Eben Howard, Outstanding Ph.D. Researcher: Tim Wylie, Outstanding Faculty Service: Mike Wittie, Outstanding Faculty Research: Clem Izurieta and Brendan Mumey, Student Selected Professor of the Year: Hunter Lloyd.  Congratulations!  [April 2013]

Dynamic Networks Seminar

Dr. Stacy Patterson, a post-doctoral fellow at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, will present a seminar entitled Distributed Estimation in Dynamic Networks on Friday, April 12th at 4:10 p.m. in Roberts 113.  Everyone is invited.  [April 2013]

Summer 2013 Offerings

The Computer Science Department is pleased to offer the following courses:

CAPP 120, sections 001 and 002, Introduction to Computers, 3 credits, fully online, 12 week session.
CS 145 RA, Web Design, 3 credits, online lecture, either an online or traditional lab, second 6 week session.
CSCI 112, Programming with C, 3 credits, traditional course, first 6 week session.
CSCI 232, Data Structures and Algorithms, 4 credits, traditional course, second 6 week session.
CSCI 246, Discrete Structures, 3 credits, traditional course, first 6 week session.

Benjamin Ph.D. Fellowship

Ph.D. student Michael Schuh has been awarded a College of Engineering Benjamin Ph.D. Fellowship for Academic Year 2013-2014.  Michael is advised by Dr. Rafal Angryk.  Congratulations!  [April 2013]

Federal Highway Administration Grant

Congratulations to Qing Yang who is the PI on a two year, 249K grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) / Department of Transportation (DOT).  Qing and his fellow Co-PIs, Hongwei Gao from EE and Xianming Shi from WTI, will build self-sustained sensor networks to monitor the water quality near highways.  [February 2013]

Premier Journal Publication

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Tim Wylie whose paper, Protein Chain Pair Simplification Under the Discrete Frechet Distance, has been accepted by the premier journal IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.  Tim works closely with Professor Binhai Zhu.  [February 2013]

CRA-W Graduate Cohort Workshop

Renee Cross, a Computer Science Ph.D. student working under the supervision of Clem Izurieta, was selected to attend the CRA-W's Graduate Cohort Workshop that takes place in Boston in April.  Congratulations, Renee!  More information.  [February 2013]

Award for Excellence

Rachael Luhr, a CS senior, will receive an Award for Excellence later this month.  These awards are given to the top 40 graduating seniors who combine academic excellence with campus leadership and community service.  Rachael selected Clem Izurieta as her inspirational mentor.  Congratulations!  [February 2013]

Battlecode Tournament

Congratulations to Bovard Tiberi (CS alum), Michael Paulson (CS alum) and Jason Johnson (CS senior) for finishing 16th in the finale of the Battlecode tournament that took place at MIT this past weekend.  More than 100 teams built Java based programs to assess and navigate 2D maps while engaging in combat against the enemy.  The annual tournament is open to everyone.  [February 2013]

Game Development Club

Would you like to gain experience developing video games? The Game Development and Design Club is looking for programmers, artists, and anyone with an idea! If you are interested, feel free to text, call or email (360-536-8737 / brentechols34@yahoo.com) Brent Echols for more information! No experience is required, just a passion.  [January 2013]

Sustainable Networks REU

Professors Brendan Mumey and Clem Izurieta are hosting a summer REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program on the topic of Sustainable Networks.  Undergraduate students who wish to spend 10 weeks this coming summer in beautiful Bozeman, Montana are encouraged to apply.  More information.  [January 2013]

Institute on Ecosystems Grant

Geoff Poole, Lucy Marshall, and Clem Izurieta received a 1 year grant of $93,680 from the Institute on Ecosystems to enhance their modeling framework to include uncertainty analysis. Congratulations!  [January 2013]