Computer and Information Science | A Department of the School of Engineering and Applied Science

Camillo “CJ” Taylor, professor in CIS, is leading a team in the DARPA SubT Challenge. Teams competing in the SubT Challenge are tasked with creating a robotics system that can successfully navigate underground tunnels, urban transportation systems and natural caves. GRASP Lab members and their students have joined forces with Exyn Technologies and Ghost Robotics, two GRASP Lab spin-offs, to secure their place as one of seven DARPA-funded teams in their track of the SubT Challenge.

Professor Ani Nenkova providing in-depth, one-on-one instruction.

Computer and Information Science Department Chair Zachary Ives shows Levine Hall in Gather.town.

Prof. Tal Rabin receives ACM’s 30-year STOC Test of Time Award

Professor Tal Rabin is one of the latest researchers to receive ACM’s 2021 STOC Test of Time Award. Co-published with her then Ph.D. advisor, Michael Ben-Or, Professor Rabin’s “Verifiable secret-sharing and multiparty protocols with honest majority” (STOC 1989) was one of three papers to be recognized for its groundbreaking contributions 30 years later.

This year marks the inaugural issuing of the award by ACM’s Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), which recognizes papers published in the Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing.

The Pioneering CG Career of Norman Badler

Norman Badler’s election into the 2021 ACM SIGGRAPH Academy Class is right on time. After nearly 5 decades of teaching and trailblazing in the Penn community, the Rachleff Family Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences is set to retire later this year.

When he arrived at the University in 1974, CIS itself was only about 2 years old, and there was virtually no computer graphics focus or program at all. Professor Badler had no intention to teach it.

Minchen Li receives ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Dissertation Award

Graduating Ph.D. student Minchen Li has received the ACM SIGGRAPH 2021 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award for his thesis titled “Robust and Accurate Simulation of Elastodynamics and Contact.” ACM SIGGRAPH, with its mission “to nurture, champion, and connect researchers and practitioners of Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques” is one of the foremost special interest groups in the field of computer graphics.

According to their site, “Minchen’s dissertation presents a breakthrough in the notoriously challenging and long-standing problem of robust frictional contact simulation in nonlinear solid dynamics with guarantees of non-intersection.”

The Computer and Info Science Dept. Presents: The 2021 Student Award Winners!

Annual awards are given to undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Computer and Information Science in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievements and service to the School of Engineering and Applied Science and University community. Departments select each recipient and students are recognized at the Annual Awards Recognition Dinner held during the spring semester. Students also select faculty recipients of the annual Penn Engineering Teaching and Advising Awards each year.

Professor Joe Devietti steps into the role of CIS Undergrad Chair

When Associate Professor Joseph Devietti was an undergrad in the Department of Computer and Information Science almost 20 years ago, the pace and scale of the department was drastically different.

“Everything has just gotten so professionalized and competitive. Computing has kind of exploded, across campus,” said Devietti. “Things like the second major from the college is really exciting. To be able to give people other ways into computer science, without having to be an engineer and take physics. Follow that kind of rigid path.”

Now the coding aficionado has come full circle as he takes on the role of CIS Undergrad Chair.

CIS News

Twitter, Communities and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

07.21.2021 | Read More

Penn Engineers’ New Simulation of Glacial Calving and Tsunami Waves Accurately Predicts these Climate Change Consequences

06.29.2021 | Read More

‘Synthetic Data’ and Privacy

06.17.2021 | Read More

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Why Penn CIS?

The Department of Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Penn Engineering is uniquely positioned to propel future intellectual leaders, entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators to success. As an Ivy League institution, and the first university in the nation, The University of Pennsylvania ensures its students a transformative experience. Computer science at Penn comes in a variety of forms to meet your specific interests.

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