Kudos Matthew Vail and Qingfent (Frank) He received CISCO schol- ED arships. Also, Jack Frink received ECT an award for developing a new NN software tool, and Lucas Layman CCONNECTEDO received a second place award in ACM Competition. [See page 4.] Nader Moussa, a triple-major A NEWSLETTER FROM THE senior, was an IBM Extreme Blue DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE intern last fall. MARCH 2005 Bensong Chen, doctoral stu- dent, was named an Outstanding Teaching Assistant by NC State’s Students' Wolfgrid tests strengths Graduate Student Association. Neha Jain, Tyler Johnson and of grid computing software Matthew Vail, all seniors, received CRA’s 2005 Outstanding Under- What if you had a bunch of graduate Award honorable men- computers all over the world, tions. hooked together? That’s a Senior Rich Killian is serving as the Microsoft Ambassador at question that Sammie Carter, NC State for the 2004-05 aca- computer science senior, and demic year. Jon Harris, graduate student Carol Allen, administrative as- in the College of Design, had sistant in the undergraduate advis- in mind when they began to ing offi ce, was recognized for 25 years of service at the university’s build the Wolfgrid across the staff recognition program last NC State community. August. She has been with the Using Apple’s new Xgrid computer science department for software, the two have been her entire NC State career. Dr. Peng Ning, assistant pro- hooking up personal com- Sammie Carter, computer science student, discusses the Wolfgrid with fessor, received an NSF CAREER puters across campus, creating Everette Allen, computing consultant. NC State’s Information Technol- Award. [See p. 10.] a virtual community grid that ogy Division, center, and Jon Harris, student in the College of Textiles. Pride of the Wolfpack Award works like a super computer, recipients in the last quarter performing tasks when the individual com- was launched in February 2004, with guid- were Kelly Potter, Senior Design ance from Everette Allen, computing con- Center; Carol Allen, administrative puters are not being used by their owners. assistant, undergraduate advising, The student-initiated Wolfgrid project sultant with NC State’s Information Tech- and Linda Honeycutt, departmen- Continued on page 5 tal executive assistant and director for personnel actions. As member of Defense Science Study Group, Nearly 170 computer science degrees were conferred in Decem- Antón explores national security issues ber 2004. Donald Haile, president of Fidelity Investments Systems, Summer 2004 was anything but typical (DSSG), designed to develop strong links was guest speaker. for Dr. Annie Antón, associate professor at between the national security community NC State’s Department of Computer Sci- and emerging leaders of science and engi- ence. neering. This is a very selective program; Inside this issue She spent several weeks touring military Anton was one of 14 chosen from a group • Senior Design teams aim to bases and government agencies, learning of 137 nominees, according to Dr. Phillip help Insight Racing meet about the technical dimensions of national Gould, DSSG director. DARPA Challenge, page 6 security issues as well as the people and op- Managed by the Institute for Defense • IBM anticipates more IT jobs, erations involved. She also earned an ‘Hon- Analyses (IDA) and sponsored by the De- page 7 • Perros joins NLR Council, orary Paratrooper’ award in recognition of fense Advanced Research Projects Agency page 9 her successful jump from the 34-foot tower (DARPA), the central research and develop- • Alumni update: Derek Meyer at Fort Bragg, NC. ment organization for the Department of combines computing, piloting, Antón had been selected for the 2004- page 10 2005 Defense Science Study Group Continued on page 8 1 THE DEPARTMENTAL CONNECTION From the Desk of the Department Head Don Martin, former CSC department Another academic year is well on its The Fall 2004 commencement ceremony head, dies way, and it has been wonderful so far. recognized the academic achievements Donald Martin, Ph.D., pro- The computer science department spent of 166 Computer Science graduates and fessor and former head of the the early autumn months preparing for brought the ranks of our alumni to over computer science department, two major milestones - the CAC/ABET1 4500. This was an exciting and auspicious died Feb. 11 following a battle accreditation review, and an external peer event that culminated years of hard work with MDS and leukemia. review in preparation for the formal search and dedication for all concerned. Martin received bach- for a new department head. In the fall of 2005, we will be moving elor of science and master's The CAC/ABET review took place in into a new building on the NC State degrees at the University of late October, and the external review in Centennial Campus. This move will enable South Carolina and a Ph.D. in mid-November. As a department, we have our department to consolidate, and our chemical engineering at NC gained a lot from both. The process of students to take the majority of their State. He helped to develop reviewing carefully and constructively both courses and conduct research with our and headed the computer sci- our undergraduate and graduate programs, faculty in new state-of-the-art classrooms ence department at NC State as well as our research program, yielded an and laboratories. We have several exciting during a time that has come to honest and very useful assessment of our months ahead as we prepare for this move. be known as the "Martin Era." core strengths, challenges and potential. We I wish you a year of happiness and Although he received nu- have accomplished much and have much to success. merous accolades, his family look forward to. notes that his most important One highlight is recognition that our Mladen A. Vouk was being voted teacher of educational programs equip our students Interim Department Head the year for several years by to be competitive, to succeed in their his students. He loved teach- profession, and to contribute to society. For Footnotes 1 Computing Accreditation Commission of the ing and was known as a tough example, for the fourth year running, NC Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology professor from whom stu- State was the largest supplier of new hires (http://www.abet.org/cac1.html) dents learned well. to IBM – and computer science students Martin had served in the represent a large fraction of those hires. U.S. Navy and Reserves for Also, we are among the top in the nation over 20 years and retired as in the number of awarded bachelor’s and Staff Appointments & Changes Commander. master’s degrees in computer science and Barbara Adams, PhD, is assistant director He is survived by his wife in the top 40 in the number of awarded of undergraduate advising, working with Doris, children and grand- Ph.D.’s in Computer Science. Joyce Hatch, lecturer and coordinator of children. In lieu of fl owers, Currently, we have 41 tenured and advising. the family requested that tenure-track faculty, over 850 undergraduate donations be made to St. Jude majors, and over 380 graduate students. We Ginny Adams transfered to the Centennial Hospital, 501 St. Jude Pl., are in the process of looking for new faculty Campus faculty secretary position. Memphis, TN 38105. Tributes members to help make our department even Jason Corley was named information tech- may be sent to www.bronw- more competitive. nology coordinator for the department. ynne.com. In the last six months our students, staff and faculty have received a number Jennifer Craddock left for a position with of awards and recognition, and have Fidelity Mutual. Technical papers participated in a number of professional Dana Lasher was named director of stu- events. This includes best paper awards, To keep up with faculty dent services. student and faculty scholarship and research research, view Computer awards, a prestigious NSF CAREER award, Anna Rzewnicki left for a position with science faculty members’ tech- several Pride of Wolfpack awards, and the College of Management. Irene Rindos, nical papers online at http:// appointments on prestigious national bodies CSC freshman, is assisting with department www.csc.ncsu.edu/research/ such as the National Lambda Rail (http:// communications. tech/reports.php. www.nlr.org) Network Research Council. 2 THE DEPARTMENTAL CONNECTION Mayr joins the CSC faculty The newest member of the comput- and are used conducted research with colleagues er science faculty is bringing additional in differ- in the United Kingdom (particularly expertise in software verifi cation to the ent roles, Scotland), France, Sweden and the department. depending Czech Republic. His doctoral supervi- Dr. Richard Mayr joined the faculty on the ap- sor in Munich was Spanish and had also as assistant professor this fall, coming plication,” he worked in Scotland, “so this was a con- from the computer science faculty at the says. tributing factor” to Mayr’s international Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg, While interests, he says. Germany. much of the It stands to reason that he includes His main research areas are formal work in veri- travel, foreign cultures and languages verifi cation, logic, automata theory, term fi cation has on his list of hobbies, along with hik- rewriting, asynchronous systems and been about ing, cycling and skiing. He speaks four computer networks. systems languages fl uently: German, English, Richard Mayr Although he began his research which have French and Swedish, plus a little Span- in semi-automatic verifi cation meth- fi nite state ish and Greek. ods, using computer assisted proving spaces, Mayr has focused on the more Mayr also enjoys working with systems, he shifted to fully automatic general case of infi nite state spaces. His students.