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.

New Asst. Professor Danaë Metaxa wants tech to serve ALL of the people

When asked what made them passionate about the work that they do, Danaë Metaxa describes an intrinsic calling to look to the needs of those that scientific design and application neglects.

“If you’re the type of person that exists at some of those intersections, as I am, you start to see the ways in which those assumptions that system designers or that developers have made, they don’t serve you.” said Metaxa. “You start realizing the limitations of those approaches and the short-sightedness, or even active exclusion, of different types of people. And I think once you notice that, at least for me, as soon as I became attuned to that, it was really hard to look away.”

The Pure Challenge of Perception: Georgios Pavlakos receives Rubinoff Award for his work in 3D reconstruction

Imagine a world in which the robots we see dancing on viral videos do so, not because they were programmed to, but because they had seen it in a video. Computer Science PhD alumnus Georgios Pavlakos seeks to help make this a reality.

The current BAIR postdoc has received the 2021 Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff Award for his project titled “Learning to Reconstruct 3D Humans,” advised by Professor Kostas Daniilidis. The School of Engineering and Applied Science presents this award yearly “to a graduate degree candidate whose dissertation has resulted in or could lead to innovative applications of computer technology.”

Cyber comfort and security: Sebastian Angel receives NSF Career Award

Raj and Neera Singh Term Assistant Professor Sebastian Angel is the latest in a line of astute educators to be granted funding through the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program.

Angel and his team received the funds, roughly $125k received to date, to continue research on their project “Tools for building online services that hide metadata“.

“The project is all about finding different ways to give companies the tools that they need so they can continue to operate as they do today, but without having to acquire as much information about users,” said Angel. “For example, how can we build social networks where Facebook doesn’t have to know everything about you or your friends.”

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.

Kevin Johnson Appointed Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor

Kevin Johnson has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 27th Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor (PIK).

Professor Johnson joins a distinguished group of interdisciplinary educators who have been appointed to two or more Penn Schools since Pres. Amy Gutmann launched the PIK initiative in 2005. The program’s agenda: “to recruit to Penn renowned scholars whose work draws from two or more academic disciplines and whose achievements demonstrate a rare ability to thrive at the intersection of multiple fields.”

CIS News

Norm Badler Elected to the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy

06.16.2021 | Read More

Watch the Winners of the 2021 Senior Design Competition

06.09.2021 | Read More

Celebrating Penn Engineering’s 2021 Graduates

06.02.2021 | Read More

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Events, Updates and People

Find info about panels, talks, special events and stories about the students and faculty that make CIS the exceptional department it is.

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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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