“We are pleased to offer the first truly interdisciplinary robotics Ph.D. program in the country,” said Dr. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. “Exposing our students to course work from multiple disciplines early on prepares them to think about robotics from a holistic approach once they enter the workforce. True to our mission in robotics at Georgia Tech, our program will recruit and educate outstanding students who will provide leadership in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology.”

According to robotics industry associations in North America and Japan, the global robotics market is expected to significantly expand over the next five years, including gains in both the service and personal robotics fields. With a focus on personal and everyday robotics, as well as the future of automation, faculty involved with RIM@Georgia Tech developed the doctoral degree program to best enable students to understand and drive the future role of robotics in society and industry. Approximately 15 candidates per year are expected to be admitted, gradually building the program to 60 enrolled students.

“Over the next five to ten years, robotics technologies will become more integrated throughout various industries that directly impact human activity and culture, such as healthcare, food processing, logistics and others,” said Dr. Christensen. “At Georgia Tech, our doctorate students will be guided through their research by at least two faculty members from distinct participating schools, providing more insight and expertise into a specific industry sector or focus area.”

Students in the Robotics Ph.D. program must first be admitted to one of the participating academic units, subsequently designated as the student’s home unit. Students will then progress through the course requirements consisting of 36 semester hours of core research and elective courses, the passing of a comprehensive qualifying exam with written and oral components, and the successful completion, documentation and defense of a piece of original research culminating in a doctoral thesis.

Over 30 faculty members from the schools of Interactive Computing, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering are affiliated with this new Ph.D. program. Faculty involved in the development of the new doctoral program include Henrik Christensen (College of Computing), Frank Dellaert (College of Computing), Eric Johnson (School of Aerospace Engineering), Ayanna Howard (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Steve DeWeerth (Department of Biomedical Engineering), and Harvey Lipkin (School of Mechanical Engineering).

About the Robotics & Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech (RIM@GT)
The Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (RIM@Georgia Tech) leverages the strengths and resources of Georgia Tech in robotics education, research, and leadership by reaching across traditional boundaries to embrace a multidisciplinary approach. The College of Computing, College of Engineering and the Georgia Tech Research Institute play key, complementary roles through Tech's traditional expertise in interactive and intelligent computing, control, and mechanical engineering. Emphasizing personal and everyday robotics as well as the future of automation, faculty involved with RIM@Georgia Tech help students understand and define the future role of robotics in society. www.robotics.gatech.edu

About the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech
The College of Engineering at Georgia Tech is the largest engineering program in the U.S. and ranked 4th among the country’s best graduate programs by U.S. News and World Report. A respected leader in interdisciplinary research and education, the College of Engineering grants the highest number of engineering degrees in the nation across nine fields of study. For more information about the programs in the College of Engineering, please visit www.coe.gatech.edu.

About the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
The College of Computing at Georgia Tech is a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 11th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College’s unconventional approach to education is defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit www.cc.gatech.edu.

Useful Links
Sting Racing – www.sting-racing.org
Robot Ethics – www.cc.gatech.edu/news/robot-ethics-proposal-funded-by-dod
Intelligent Machine Dynamics – www.imdl.gatech.edu
Institute for Personal Robots in Education – www.roboteducation.org
Human Automation Systems – humanslab.ece.gatech.edu
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research – uav.ae.gatech.edu

For more information, contact:

Stefany Wilson

College of Computing at Georgia Tech

404.894.7253

stefany@cc.gatech.edu

www.cc.gatech.edu

Dr. Foley is Professor and Associate Dean in the College of Computing, and Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He earned the Ph.D. in Computer Information and Control Engineering at the University of Michigan and the BSEE at Lehigh University, where he was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu.

Dr. Foley first came to Georgia Tech in 1991 to establish the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center, which in 1996 was ranked #1 by US News and World Report for graduate computer science work in graphics and user interaction. In 1996, he became director of Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab in Cambridge and then in 1998 chairman and CEO of Mitsubishi Electric ITA, directing corporate R&D at four labs in North America. He returned to Georgia as Executive Director and then CEO of Yamacraw, Georgia's economic development initiative in the design of broadband systems, devices and chips.

Dr. Foley is a Fellow of ACM and IEEE, an inaugural member of the ACM/CHI Academy, and recipient of the biannual ACM/SIGGRAPH Stephen Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics. The graphics textbooks he has co-authored are widely used and have been translated into six foreign languages. In 1992, the Georgia Tech College of Computing graduate students named him, "most likely to make students want to grow up to be professors."

In July 2001, Dr. Foley will become chairman of the Computing Research Association - an organization of over 200 computer science and computer engineering university departments, professional societies and industrial research labs.

About Stephen Fleming

Stephen Fleming is a fifth-generation Atlanta native, who graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Tech in 1983 with a BS in physics. During his years on campus he was involved in student government, undergraduate curriculum affairs, and the ANAK honor society. He was the recipient of the Phi Kappa Phi Scholarship cup for the highest academic achievement (4.0) in his graduating class.

Mr. Fleming has a varied background in telecommunications operations, having managed optical fiber, broadband, and interactive telecommunications projects since his co-op assignments while at Georgia Tech. His career has included increasingly senior positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Northern Telecom (Nortel), and LICOM, a venture-backed startup.

He joined Alliance Technology Ventures as the second general partner in early 1995, and has played a key role in building ATV's reputation as one of the leading early-stage technology venture funds in the Southeast. Mr. Fleming has held board seats at over a dozen of ATV's portfolio companies, both public and private. As of 2001, Alliance Technology Ventures has been successful in raising three venture funds; the Georgia Tech Foundation has been an investor in each fund. Five of ATV's investments to date have involved technology transfer of Georgia Tech research.

Mr. Fleming is a past member of the board of directors of the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT), and is a current member of the boards of advisors for the College of Computing and the DuPree College of Management, both at Georgia Tech. He has served as an advisor to the Georgia Research Alliance, and is heavily involved in the state's public policy debates regarding high technology. He is also the founder of the LIGHT (Linking Investors to Georgia High Technology) program, which is sponsored by GCATT, ATDC, the DuPree College, and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

"This course material is as timely as today's headlines," said Tom Pilsch, the College's assistant dean for Continuing Education. "We built the course especially for technical and non-technical leaders at all levels who finally have heard the wake-up call and are looking for a 'how-to' roadmap."

This course goes beyond traditional information security courses that focus on technologies such as firewalls and encryption to secure data. "Blueprint for Information Security" will touch on security technology but will concentrate on risk management and policy issues to assist managers in creating a data protection plan consistent with the needs of their organization.

"Recent national events have motivated us to accelerate this program," noted Pilsch. "The interest and need definitely are there."

"Blueprint for Information Security" is the lead course for a new certificate on Managing Information Security beginning in January 2002. This series of short courses will fill in the details on policy, planning and implementation for building a comprehensive information risk management program. The full certificate also will cover the common body of knowledge elements for the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.

Online registration and directions to the Georgia Tech Computer Training Facility are available at http://www.gtcoc.com.

Contact Tom Pilsch for more information.

The lecture series is generously sponsored by Atlanta-based SecureWorks Inc., which offers a 24x7 real-time intrusion prevention service to protect networks from security breaches.

Created in 1998, GTISC is an interdisciplinary center focused on conducting research and providing education and outreach programs on information security issues. Recently, the National Security Agency named GTISC a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Security Assurance Education.

Some 20 faculty and 45 students from across the Georgia Tech campus are involved in approximately $6 million of funded research in information security through GTISC. The Center also offers a number of courses on the topic and expects to offer a Master¹s in Information Security starting sometime in 2002.

"Information security is one of the most important and challenging issues facing our society today," said Dr. Peter Freeman, acting director for GTISC and John P. Imlay, Jr. dean and professor in the College of Computing.

"As we understand more about the subject, it is clear that there are a myriad of opportunities for cutting-edge research in computer science as well as policy studies. This set of outstanding speakers has been chosen to help us all better understand the intellectual challenges and policy decisions we face."

About SecureWorks

SecureWorks is the first "next generation" network security service designed to prevent network intrusions by professional hackers. The company provides comprehensive intrusion prevention by offering three key components: real-time intervention, data fingerprint correlation and dynamic inoculation technology. SecureWorks¹ proactive security solution is based on its information security appliance, the iSensor, and its technology working in concert with security specialists located at the company¹s security operations center.

The complete schedule for the 2001 Fall lecture series follows:

September 6
Dr. Michael O. Rabin
Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Computer Science
Harvard University

October 4
Dr. Eugene H. Spafford
Purdue University
Professor of Computer Science and Philosophy
Director, Center for Education Research Information Assurance and Security

October 18
Dr. Edward W. Felten
Princeton University
Associate Professor of Computer Science

November 8
Dr. Matthew A. Bishop
University of California, Davis
Associate Professor of Computer Science

December 6
Dr. Donald Prosnitz
Department of Justice
Chief Scientist

Pictured from left to right are moderator Chip White (ISyE Chair of Transportation and Logistics), Rich DeMilllo, Chris Klaus (Founder and CTO of Internet Security Systems and Georgia Tech alumnus), and Doug Lewis (CIO of Six Continents Hotels).

In his keynote address, DeMillo said that today's security threats are asymmetric in that there is not one common perimeter of defense to consider but multiple points of entry that could be targeted indirectly and from the inside.

Klaus agreed and added that more investment in information technology is needed in terms of people, education and training. He also recommended that companies build security into their plan rather than after, and that they set common standards for pushing security throughout an organization.

Lewis noted that information technology discussion is increasingly moving into the board room due to security's impact on a company's revenue, accountability and brand.

Created and sponsored by the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Georgia Tech Business Network holds quarterly meetings on a wide variety of topics. For more information, visit www.gtbn.org.

Jean-Lou Chameau, Georgia Tech provost, was in attendance at Friday's meeting and told the College community: "Peter has done a tremendous job at recruiting bright faculty who will carry his legacy. He also has done a tremendous job of raising much needed funds for expansion of the College. Peter is a great colleague and I will miss him."

Freeman told his faculty and staff it was a "bittersweet time" for him.

"Serving as dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech has been the highlight of my career. We are blessed with faculty with great minds who push the boundaries of computing and who help integrate the discipline of computer science with many other academic and applied areas," he said. "The College of Computing will always be a part of me, and I'll miss working with the great faculty, staff, students and administrators both here at the College of Computing and Georgia Tech on a regular basis. But, remember that you are the College. Carry on!"

Freeman holds the only endowed dean's chair at Georgia Tech, the John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing, which was established in 1999. Under his leadership, the College of Computing has become one of the strongest and largest computing research and education groups in the country, as well as one of the top units at Georgia Tech. Enrollment in the College of Computing has grown dramatically from approximately 700 students to a current total of nearly 1,900, increasing by more than 1,000 students at the undergraduate level and by nearly 120 at the graduate level. The faculty has also grown from 37 academic and four research faculty to 64 academic and 35 research faculty.

Freeman's leadership also helped bring to fruition the single largest outright gift in Georgia Tech's history when in 2000 Christopher W. Klaus donated $15 million to the College. The new Advanced Computing Technology Building, now in the design phase, will be named in his honor.

In addition to serving as dean, Freeman also served as chief information officer for the campus for three years during which time he led the campus networking project (FutureNet) in preparation for hosting the1996 Olympics. As part of the campus leadership team he was heavily involved in the recently completed capital campaign and the Yamacraw Economic Development Mission. In 1998, he chaired the Sam Nunn NationsBank Policy Forum on information security, which led to the creation of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), one of the first comprehensive centers in the country focused on information security. He currently serves as acting director for GTISC.

Prior to coming to Georgia Tech, Freeman was visiting distinguished professor of information technology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia (1989-90), and from 1987 to 1989 he served as division director for computer and computation research at the National Science Foundation. He served on the faculty of the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, for almost twenty years before coming to Georgia Tech.

"We are grateful to Peter Freeman for serving as the dean for our College of Computing during its first 12 years," said Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough. "Under his leadership the College has grown dramatically and developed into one of the nation's best computing programs in the nation. His legacy will include an accomplished faculty, a top flight student body, and a successful capital campaign that provided faculty chairs, student scholarships and private funding for the soon to be built Klaus Advanced Computing Technology Building. We are grateful to Peter and wish him the best in his new position."

Freeman received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1970, his M.A. in mathematics and psychology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1965, and his B.A. in physics and mathematics from Rice University in 1963. He co-authored "The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States" (CRA, 1999) and authored "Software Perspectives: The System is the Message" (Addison Wesley, 1987), "Software Systems Principles" (SRA, 1975), and numerous technical papers.

In addition, he edited or co-edited four books including, "Software Reusability" (IEEE Computer Society, 1987), and "Software Design Techniques," 4th edition (IEEE Press,1983). He was the founding editor of the McGraw-Hill Series in software engineering and technology. In addition, Freeman is an active consultant to industry, government and academia around the globe. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Computing Research Association since 1988, having served as vice-chair and chair of the Government Affairs Committee. He serves as co-chair for the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science Advisory Committee and is a senior advisor to the University of United Arab Emirates. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Recent studies by the American Association of University Women show that the kinds of concerns voiced by Georgia Tech students have had an especially negative impact on female participation in CS. Margolis and Fisher’s book titled “Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing,” suggests that many students view computing courses as overly technical, boring, and lacking opportunities for creativity and relationships to real application. The book suggests that women in particular find this view of computing unappealing enough to stay away.

One course offered as a pilot this spring in the College of Computing, however, may forever change the landscape for non-CS majors. Titled “Introduction to Media Computation,” the pilot offering of the course included 120 students, two-thirds of whom were women. The course uses “computation for communication” as a guiding principle. CS1315 students study and create programs that manipulate sound, images and movies. Students program in Jython (JES), an implementation of the programming language Python integrated with Java. Specialized technology for the course was developed by a team of undergraduate students and includes an environment for programming in JES and a suite of applications that support students’ exploration of media.

“The technology built for the course was more effective than we anticipated, given the pilot nature of the course and the software,” said Associate Professor Mark Guzdial, who created and taught the pilot course. “The results in our first offering of the course have been remarkable,” he said. Ph.D. student and research assistant Andrea Forte said, “while we are still in the process of exploring its effectiveness as a learning environment, I think the simplicity of JES’ design contributed to students’ success.”

By drop day, only three students out of 120 had dropped the class, resulting in one of the highest retention rates in CoC history for an introductory programming course for non-majors.

“Many students run in fear of CS1321, and it is a lot of pressure for non-CS majors, so we decided to develop a pilot course (CS1315) that was less intimidating, but equally challenging,” said Guzdial.

Computer science classes traditionally emphasize issues such as speed of solutions because historically computers were slow in solving generalized problems. Instead, CS1315 emphasizes real-world applications of computing and creative social experiences with computing. Students learn to program in the context of learning how to use computers for communication, as opposed to calculation, an important distinction for non-CS majors.

When asked what they like about the class, students affirmed that the pilot program is succeeding at establishing a course that students recognize as relevant even among non-CS majors. One female student said, “I dreaded CS, but all of the topics thus far have been applicable to my future career and personal plans. There isn’t anything I don’t like about this class!”

Georgia Tech requires all students to take an introductory course in computing, including programming skills. The traditional course is undoubtedly one of the most unpopular courses on campus, especially among non-CS majors. Results from the pilot course in media computation, however, indicate that the new approach appeals to liberal arts majors and yet retains a focus on programming.

Guzdial says, “Programming and computation will inevitably become part of a general liberal education, but computing courses will need to continue evolving for this to happen.”

Students in the pilot offering of Media Computation were surveyed at the beginning of the course this past spring along with students from 2 other introductory computing courses— CS 1321 (required for CS majors) and COE1361 (required for engineering majors). Andrea Forte wrote the survey with input from Guzdial, and responses were collected and analyzed with assistance from Rachel Fithian and undergraduate Lauren Rich. The survey responses indicated that at the beginning of the semester, students in different introductory CS courses had different perceptions about computer science. By the end of the courses, however, perceptions among students were much more similar, suggesting that parallel conceptions or understanding about CS arose from students in all three courses. Results also indicated that students in Media Computation appreciated the relevance of the course and even found computer science interesting. Students wrote eight programs (six collaboratively and two individually) involving the creation or manipulation of pictures, sounds, HTML pages and movies, with some of their programs reaching over 100 lines of code. Some students reported that they did programming on their own time “just for fun,” to do things like play songs backwards or manipulate their personal photographs.

Teaching assistants who helped make the pilot offering successful were undergraduates Jim Gruen, Angela Liang, Larry Olson, Matt Wallace, Adam Wilson, and Ph.D. student Jose Zagal. Guzdial will teach two sections in the fall with an expected enrollment of 240 students. CoC Associate Professor Colin Potts and CoC Assistant Professor Blair MacIntyre will join Guzdial to teach CS1315 in the spring of 2004. The expected enrollment for spring is 360 students.

Other colleges and universities have taken notice of the pilot’s success and some have started implementing the approach as well. Gainesville College started a Media Computation class this summer with 12 students (9 female). Charles Fowler of Gainesville is working closely with Guzdial’s team to evaluate how the class works to adapt materials at a variety of institutions. Other schools in the University System are talking with Guzdial about how to adapt the approach for their curricula as well.

To: The College of Computing Community

I am pleased to tell you that the 2003-4 academic year was one of remarkable growth for the College. Thanks to the dedicated effort of the CCD and ICD recruiting committees chaired by Mustaque Ahamad and Irfan Essa, and a great support team led by Linda Williams, we will add five new faculty:

Eric Vigoda will join CCD as an Associate Professor on July 15th. His office will be located in CCB 237. Eric received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999. Prior to joining the College, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. Among his research interests are new techniques for analyzing Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.

Alexandra (Sasha) Boldyreva will join CCD as an Assistant Professor on August 15th. Her office will be located in CCB 254. Sasha received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at San Diego in 2004. Her research interests include cryptography and information security.

Alessandro (Alex) Orso will join CCD as an Assistant Professor on August 15th. His office will be located in CCB 218. Alex received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1999. Alex is currently a CoC Research Scientist. His research interest is in software engineering with an emphasis on program analysis and testing. He was the recipient of the CoC 2004 Outstanding Research Scientist Research Faculty Award.

Keith Edwards will join ICD as an Associate Professor on September 27th. His office will be located in TSRB. Keith received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 1995. Keith joins us from The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where he was a senior member of the research staff. His research interests include ubiquitous computing, infrastructure to support novel user interfaces, and computer-supported cooperative work.

Rebecca (Becki) Grinter will join ICD as an Associate Professor on September 27th. Her office will be in TSRB. Becki received her Ph.D. in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine in 1996. Becki is also joining us from PARC where she is a member of the research staff. Her research interests include computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), human computer interaction (HCI), and software engineering.

We also have two virtual additions: previously announced faculty members that were hired last year but spent the year on leave at other institutions:

Assistant Professor Subhash Khot (CCD) arrived on July 1st after spending a year at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Here are Subash's coordinates:
Office: CCB 234
E-mail: <a xhref="mailto:khot@cc.gatech.edu">khot@cc.gatech.edu</a>
Phone: (404) 385-6603

Assistant Professor Gabriel Loh (CCD) will arrive on August 15th after spending a year on leave at Intel. Here are Gabriel's coordinates:
Office: CCB 221
E-mail: <a xhref="mailto:loh@cc.gatech.edu">loh@cc.gatech.edu</a>
Phone: (404) 385-6604

Please join me in welcoming our new colleagues to Georgia Tech and the College of Computing.

Rich DeMillo

The Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship is an extraordinarily competitive award, involving nominations for most of the very best scientists from around the country. Sloan Research Fellows, once chosen, are free to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of the most compelling interest to them. The Fellowship carries with it a grant of $40,000, to be used over a two-year period in support of research.

Samrat (Bobby) Bhattacharjee received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the College of Computing at Georgia Tech in 1999. His thesis was part of the CANES active networking project. At Tech, he also worked on the GT-ITM and SOREN projects. Bhattacharjee is also an assistant professor in the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and an affiliate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is a NSF CAREER Award recipient. His research interests include wide-area networking, network protocol design, operating systems and distributed systems and algorithms. His research group has designed a set of protocols and mechanisms that address different aspects of implementing cooperative applications. The focus is on incentive-based cooperation policies, on mechanisms to scalably check and enforce partnerships and on protocols to ensure privacy and integrity.

James O'Brien earned his doctorate in Computer Science from the Georgia Tech&rsquo;s College of Computing in August of 2000 before going to UC Berkeley. His interests are in most areas of Computer Graphics and Animation, but his research focuses primarily on the physically based simulation of complex deformable and fluid systems. The methods developed by his research group can be used for generating special effects in movies, realistic environment in video games and for training simulations. In addition to serving on the committees for other conference and journals, O'Brien has twice served on the ACM SIGGRAPH Papers Committee. He has published seven journal papers and twenty conference papers, including ten in the ACM SIGGRAPH conference. &ldquo;I think one of the reasons I've been successful is that I had the opportunity to work closely with outstanding faculty at Georgia Tech, and learn from each one of them," says O'Brien. "The real secret to success is to be excited about your work and enjoy it. Other things like integrity and self-honesty are important too."

The Sloan Research Fellowships were established in 1955 to provide support and recognition to young scientists. Twenty-six Sloan Fellows have won Nobel Prizes later in their careers, and hundreds have received other honors. Currently a total of 116 fellowships are awarded annually in seven fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics. Since the beginning of the program, the Foundation has spent nearly $99 million for support of over 3,800 young researchers.

"This is the program security leaders in business and government have asked for," said Tom Pilsch, the College's assistant dean for continuing education. "People told us that they are concerned about policy, planning and human engineering challenges as well as the technical issues and they want a program that supports a widely recognized certification exam. This curriculum offers all that."

The certificate in Managing Information Security provides a bridge between a traditional focus on technologies such as firewalls and encryption and the business issues of risk management and policy to assist managers in creating a comprehensive data protection plan consistent with the needs of their organization.

"We built this program especially for technical and non-technical leaders at all levels who finally have heard the wake-up call and are looking for a 'how-to' roadmap in information security," said Pilsch.

The core of the curriculum is based on the 10 elements of the Certificate Body of Knowledge (CBK) covered on the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) examination. This vendor-neutral certification is administered by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc., (ISC)2, and is widely recognized in the information security industry as a mark of professional commitment.

The nine modules in the certificate cover legal issues, policy, planning, implementation, incident response and business continuity. There also is a one-day information technology overview for non-technical managers who may need to refresh their technical understanding. The final module in the certificate is an incident response exercise to provide hands-on application of the principles covered in the classroom.

The College of Computing provides a series of non-credit short courses and certificates in core computing competencies such as databases, Internet, software engineering, networks, computing environments and now information security at the Georgia Tech Computer Training Facility in Midtown Atlanta. Additional information on these programs, including online registration and directions to the facility, is available at http://www.gtcoc.com.

Merkle will be joining the College of Computing faculty as Professor of Computing and director of GTISC, reporting to the Office of the Provost, effective September 8. Merkle fills the position currently held on an interim basis by Richard A. DeMillo, the Imlay Dean of the nationally ranked College of Computing.

"Ralph brings his undisputable expertise and worldwide name recognition in the field of information security, an important area of focus for Georgia Tech," said Jean-Lou Chameau, provost and vice-president for academic affairs.  "His extensive research experience, credibility, and leadership will enhance GTISC's successes."

Merkle is widely recognized for his award-winning work in the field of cryptography as one of the co-founders of public-key cryptography. The New York Times said, "Dr. Ralph C. Merkle is celebrated as an inventor of the encryption technology that allows secure transactions over the Internet." More recently, he has focused in theemerging area of nanotechnology, also called molecular manufacturing, gaining a reputation for achievement in that field as well.

"Ralph Merkle, together with Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie, invented modern cryptography," said DeMillo. "Today there are millions of ordinary people -- internet users, cell phone subscribers, bank customers, soldiers in the battlefield -- who depend on Ralph's inventions for security and trust in cyberspace. He really provided the key insight that led to the explosion of security innovation that we see today. We are, needless to say, very excited that Ralph will be joining our community and leading information security research here at Georgia Tech."

"Ralph's selection is great news," said Christopher W. Klaus, founder and chief technology officer of Internet Security Systems.  "It'll be a good time for him to bring leadership to GTISC and be a part of the next big security wave. I look forward to working with him."

Computers have exploded into every facet of our lives as never before.  They shape what we know, what we can do, and what is done to us - and yet we cannot and do not trust them. That must change, and the time for that change has now come, said Merkle. "It is both an honor and a pleasure for me to return to my first loves of computer security and cryptography to help Georgia Tech play a pivotal role in this coming transformation."

About Merkle

Merkle comes to Georgia Tech from Zyvex LLC, a nanotechnology start-up company headquartered near Dallas, where as principal fellow he led the company's nanotechnology research efforts since 1999. During this time he kept up his interests in security by consulting with, among others, Xerox PARC, Securify, and various confidential clients.

From 1988 - 1999, Merkle pursued research in both computer security and computational nanotechnology as a research scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). From 1980 - 1988, he was manager of compiler development at Elxsi Corporation, a Silicon Valley start-up company.

Merkle has published and spoken extensively and holds 11 patents.  He holds the fundamental patents on many of the major technologies in cryptography and cryptographic protocols.  Notable are his patents with Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie on public key distribution and public key cryptosystems.

Merkle has published extensively in such leading journals as IEEE Spectrum, MIT Technology Review, Nanotechnology, Journal of Cryptology, and Crypto.  His influential books include "Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems," UMI Research Press (1982).

He was co-recipient of the 1998 Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology for Theory. For his security work he received the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice, the 2000 RSA Award in Mathematics and the Kobayashi Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

He served for many years as the executive editor of the journal Nanotechnology. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, and the IEEE. He sits on the Board of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and serves as vice president for technology assessment at the Foresight Institute, a Palo Alto based non-profit focused on nanotechnology.

Dr. Merkle received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

About GTISC

The Georgia Tech Information Security Center, a National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, conducts interdisciplinary research and development on all aspects of information security, including systems-vulnerability assessment, theory development, and public and organizational security policies. GTISC's three-pronged mission includes: conducting research that will lay the foundations for a discipline of information security and that contributes to the development and testing of systems, devices, strategies, policies, practical concepts, and techniques; educating and training information security professionals through degree and continuing-education programs, and to insure that information security awareness is instilled in all Georgia Tech students; and assisting industry, non-profit organizations, government, and individuals to solve information security problems through outreach programs and support of groups devoted to information security.

The interdisciplinary center is housed in the College of Computing and involves faculty from Computing, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and the School of Public Policy.

The degree, approved at the Board’s most recent meeting, is the only graduate program of its kind in Georgia, according to Mike McCracken, master’s program coordinator and principal research scientist in the College of Computing. The 32-hour interdisciplinary program will be housed in the College of Computing and will be offered in coordination with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, the Dupree College of Management and the Georgia State University Management Information Systems program.

The objective of the program is to provide students with practical skills and a theoretical understanding of information security. Students can focus on either the technical aspects of InfoSec or on the policy issues. Technically, students will examine ways to provide secure information processing systems, including secure operating systems and applications, network security, cryptography and security protocols. Approximately 25 students are expected to enter the program in the Fall.

"There is a high demand for individuals with advanced knowledge of information security," said McCracken, "and we anticipate that graduates of the program will be highly recruited by both the corporate and government sector." The recent tragedies of September 11, 2001 only serve to heighten the awareness for the increased need for information security, McCracken said, although the program was in the planning stages well before September 11.

Georgia Tech already has received positive feedback from the corporate sector for the program, including companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Internet Security Systems, SecureWorks and the United States Department of Justice, said Dr. Peter A. Freeman, dean of the College of Computing and acting director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, (GTISC) a center that will be heavily involved with the master’s program. "Our corporate partners have expressed great interest in hiring employees who have the level of education in information security that this degree will offer graduates and are delighted that the Board has granted approval for the College to offer this very much needed program," he said.

GTISC, a National Security Agency Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, recently developed a broad and comprehensive curriculum for the information security area, noted Mustaque Ahamad, co-director of GTISC for technology and professor of computing. "Our significant number of knowledgeable faculty and research emphasis in information security allow us to offer this unique program in this important area," he said.

The BOR approval follows on the heels of an announcement by the College of Computing Continuing Education Program to offer a new continuing education certificate titled "Managing Information Security" begininng March 1st at the Georgia Tech Computer Training Facility at Colony Square in Midtown Atlanta. The 15-day program is offered on a recurring two-month cycle and is designed for managers at all levels who are charged with protecting digital data.

“We are very proud of Mike’s accomplishment and gratified that he was able to take advantage of our new graduate degree in Information Security so quickly,” said Rich DeMillo, John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing, Distinguished Professor of Computing and Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC). “We are working to build one of the best information security programs in the country.”

Torrey completed his undergraduate degree in computer science from the Catholic University of America in May 2001, where his interest in information security began. Torrey considered graduate school at Duke University, James Madison University, Johns Hopkins, and University of Central Florida but felt Tech was leading the way in the InfoSec field. In his first semester Torrey greatly enjoyed the introductory courses in information security and cryptography and knew he wanted to concentrate in that area. When the new degree was approved in February, Torrey had already completed many of the required courses.

“What has impressed me most about the program has been the faculty,” said Torrey “It is a difficult task simply to keep up with all of the new developments or in fact be responsible for new developments in the InfoSec field, let alone teach it. In my opinion the faculty have done an amazing job in both cases.”

Torrey is considering a conditional job offer from the National Security Agency and an offer from Anteon Corporation.

The first graduate program of its kind in Georgia, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the new Master of Science degree in February. The degree is designed to help fill the high demand for individuals with both the practical skills and theoretical understanding of information security. Students can focus on either technical or policy issues of information security. The 32-hour interdisciplinary program is housed in the College of Computing with coordination with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, the DuPree College of Management, and the Georgia State University Management Information Systems program.

The Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), a National Security Agency Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, developed the comprehensive curriculum and brings together faculty and resources in information security from across campus.

Christopher Messer, Master of Science in International Affairs, and Charles “Chad” Sellers, Master of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in Information Security, were selected for the NSF’s Scholarship for Service program for students studying information security. Georgia Tech as a Center of Academic Excellence for Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) coordinates these efforts through the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC). At Georgia Tech, the College of Computing and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts both offer graduate-level information security concentration or degrees.

“Cyber Corps is intended to cover the broad spectrum of information security from policy to technology,” said Mustaque Ahamed, professor of Computing and co-director of GTISC. “That the first two Cyber Corps graduates from Georgia Tech are graduating with degrees in International Affairs and Computer Science really fits the mission of the program.”

“The best part of my studies here at Georgia Tech has been exploring the cutting edge of security,” says Sellers. “At Georgia Tech, I have been able to explore the technologies of tomorrow, as well as analyze the technologies of today in order to improve upon them.”

Messer has accepted an offer to work in the Information Assurance Directorate of the National Security Agency (NSA) and will focus on information security policies and procedures. Sellers, a self-described “technical guy,” plans to work in network security with the NSA Information Assurance Directorate as well.

“The Cyber Corps program has given me the opportunity to get in on the ground level of a field of huge importance to national security,” says Messer. “It has helped me to make professional and career contacts with leading scholars and practitioners across the country, and it has provided the finances necessary to do this.”

Georgia Tech as a Center of Academic Excellence has a unique relationship with three historically black colleges and universities in Atlanta. Georgia Tech has partnered with Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College for a NSF Scholarship for Service grant, enabling each school to award scholarships to qualified information security students.

About GTISC

The Georgia Tech Information Security Center, a National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, conducts interdisciplinary research and development on all aspects of information security, including systems-vulnerability assessment, theory development, and public and organizational security policies. GTISC's three-pronged mission includes: conducting research that will lay the foundations for a discipline of information security and that contributes to the development and testing of systems, devices, strategies, policies, practical concepts, and techniques; educating and training information security professionals through degree and continuing-education programs, and to insure that information security awareness is instilled in all Georgia Tech students; and assisting industry, non-profit organizations, government, and individuals to solve information security problems through outreach programs and support of groups devoted to information security.

The interdisciplinary center is housed in the College of Computing and involves faculty from Computing, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and the School of Public Policy.

Cyber Corps Scholarship Programs

Additionally, three CS specialty areas received national rankings by the magazine. Georgia Tech is ranked as 8th best for Computer Systems (not included in previous years), 12th for Artificial Intelligence and 16th for Theory. These extensive specialty rankings are available by purchasing U.S. News’ "premium online edition" at www.usnews.com.

The magazine's rankings, also available in print in the magazine’s annual special edition guidebook titled "Best Graduate Schools," are based on a survey of deans and department chairs at CS programs around the country.

Two other programs, not ranked in the current year, received rankings by the magazine in the last listing of doctoral CS programs in 1999. Georgia Tech ranked 4th in 1999 in Graphics/User Interaction and 7th for Databases, bringing the current total number of ranked specialty programs to five.

A rankings summary of all Georgia Tech graduate programs may be viewed at http://www.news-info.gatech.edu/news_releases/usnewsgrad2003.html.

The U.S. News rankings follow a National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) online survey in the fall that gave the College high marks for doctoral student satisfaction. The College received an overall grade of B+ and is among 10 programs in the first of four quartiles of 35 computer science programs in the survey. The overall average for computer science programs is a B. The College is the only program from the South listed in the first quartile of schools receiving an overall grade average of B+ or higher (total points ranking from 75 to 100).

These “packet-level simulations” model individual data packets as they travel through a computer network. Downloading a web page to one’s home computer or sending an e-mail message typically involves transmitting several packets through the Internet. Packet-level simulations provide a detailed, accurate representation of network behavior (e.g., congestion), but are very time consuming to complete.

Engineers and scientists routinely use such simulations to design and analyze new networks and to understand phenomena such as Denial of Service attacks that have plagued the Internet in recent years. Because of the time required to complete the simulation computations, most studies today are limited to modeling a few hundred network components such as routers, servers and end-user computers.

“The end goal of research on network modeling and simulation is to create a more reliable and higher-performance Internet,” says Fujimoto. “Our team has created a computer simulation that is two to three orders of magnitude faster than simulators commonly used by networking researchers today. This finding offers new capabilities for engineers and scientists to study large-scale computer networks in the laboratory to find solutions to Internet and network problems that were not possible before.”

The Georgia Tech researchers have demonstrated the ability to simulate network traffic from over 1 million web browsers in near real time. This feat means that the simulators could model a minute of such large-scale network operations in only a few minutes of clock time.

Using the high-performance computers at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the Georgia Tech simulators used as many as 1,534 processors to simultaneously work on the simulation computation, enabling them to model more than 106 million packet transmissions in one second of clock time -- two to three orders of magnitude faster than simulators commonly used today. In comparison, the next closest packet-level simulations of which the research team is aware have simulated only a few million packet transmissions per second.

The research team plans to present their findings at the IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS) in October. Team members include: Mostafa Ammar, Regents professor of Computing; Kalyan Perumalla, post-doctoral/research faculty; George Riley, assistant professor in School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Fujimoto. Graduate students involved in this project include Alfred Park, Computing and Talal Jaafar, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Major funding was provided by the Network Modeling and Simulation Program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation. The cluster computing platforms at Georgia Tech were obtained through a grant from Intel.

More information about the Modeling & Simulation Research & Education Center is available at the MSREC website.

In January, Dr. Peter A. Freeman, John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing, announced he was stepping down as dean to assume a position with the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington as assistant director of NSF for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). He will remain a member of the Georgia Tech Faculty, on assignment to NSF.

In making the announcement, Chameau said, "I'm very pleased that Ellen has accepted my offer to hold this important position during this critical time for the College. Having served the College and Georgia Tech in numerous capacities over the years, I'm confident that the College will continue to perform very well under her guidance and leadership."

As assistant dean of facilities planning, Zegura oversees all aspects of space needs for the College's faculty, staff and students. She obtained D.Sc. , M.S. and B.S. degrees in computer science, and a B.S. in electrical engineering, all from Washington University in St. Louis. She has served as assistant dean of the College since 2000 and as an associate professor since 1999. She joined the College as an assistant professor in 1993 from Washington University, where she served as a research assistant since 1987.

Her research interests lie in the area of wide-area computer networking. Current research focuses on techniques to enable distributed applications to perform well in the face of increasing scale and diversity in network infrastructure, end-system devices and application base. Ongoing projects include active networking to achieve greater network programmability, application and user-driven server selection, adapting network multicast, and development of application-aware network services.

Reflecting the scope and extent of the computing field, the 2003 ACM Fellows were cited for contributions to everything from wireless telecommunications to network services, bioinformatics, Internet architecture, secure database management, and artificial intelligence, among others.

“This year’s ACM Fellows join the ranks of outstanding ACM members who have contributed to the computing community through distinguished service and significant achievements in information technology,” said John White, CEO of ACM. “By their contributions, they have advanced the computing discipline and its increasingly critical role in society in countless ways."

It is quite impressive and possibly an unprecedented honor to have four of the 30 ACM Fellows from one institution, so Congratulations to CoC Faculty, and specifically to:

Mostafa Ammar - For contributions to the design of systems and protocols for scalable network services.

Richard DeMillo - For contributions to the engineering of reliable and secure software.

Mary Jean Harrold - For contributions in software engineering.

Ramesh Jain - For contributions to computer vision and multimedia information systems.

ACM will formally recognize the new Fellows at its annual Awards Banquet in the spring of 2004. Additional information about the ACM 2003 Fellows, the awards event, as well as previous ACM Fellows and award winners is available at www.acm.org/awards.

Initiated in 1993, the Fellows program celebrates the exceptional contributions of the leading members in the computing field. These individuals have helped to enlighten researchers, developers, practitioners and end-users of information technology throughout the world. They reflect the makeup of ACM’s diverse membership roster, with representation from men and women, from universities and corporations, from North America and abroad.

2003 ACM FELLOWS

Rakesh Agrawal - IBM Almaden Research Center

Mostafa Ammar - Georgia Institute of Technology

Victor Bahl - Microsoft Research

Bonnie Berger – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Elisa Bertino - University of Milano

John Carroll – Pennsylvania State University

Richard DeMillo - Georgia Institute of Technology

Barbara J. Grosz - Harvard University

Brent Hailpern – IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Jiawei Han - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mary Jean Harrold - Georgia Institute of Technology

Peter E. Hart - Ricoh Innovations, Inc.

Mark Horowitz - Stanford University

Paul Hudak - Yale University

H.V. Jagadish - University of Michigan

Anil Jain - Michigan State University

Ramesh Jain - Georgia Institute of Technology

Niraj Jha - Princeton University

Dexter Kozen - Cornell University

Yi-Bing Lin - National Chiao Tung University

Kathleen McKeown - Columbia University

Thomas P. Moran - IBM Almaden Research Center

Eugene W. Myers - University of California-Berkeley

Craig Partridge - BBN Technologies

Daniel Reed – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Stuart J. Russell - University of California, Berkeley

William H. Sanders - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Scott Shenker - University of California, Berkeley/International Computer Science Institute

Gurindar Sohi - University of Wisconsin

Cornelis J. van Rijsbergen - University of Glasgow

Dr.Richard A. DeMillo, Imlay Dean and Distinguished Professor of Computing, announced today three additions to the College of Computing (CoC) administrative team. Effective February 1, Ellen W. Zegura became associate dean for research and graduate programs. Zegura's duties include overall responsibility for overseeing the College’s extensive research budget, and promoting and developing new research projects and initiatives. She also will oversee all aspects of the College's graduate programs and graduate student services. Zegura will retain her former duties related to space and facilities, and will continue to maintain her personal research activities in GCATT.

Ellen's considerable administrative skills became apparent to all of us during her recent tenure as interim dean of CoC, so I am personally thrilled that she has agreed to bring her intelligence and energy to the dean's office on a permanent basis,” DeMillo said.

Merrick Furst has joined the College's faculty and the dean's administrative team as professor and associate dean for undergraduate programs and faculty development. Furst is a distinguished scholar and brings further strength to the College’s already strong theory group. Furst and DeMillo have been colleagues, collaborators and friends for many years.

Beyond his academic experience at Carnegie Mellon and Berkeley, he has commercial, entrepreneurial and administrative experience I value,” said DeMillo. “I have on many occasions relied on his good sense and judgment, so it gives me great personal pleasure to have him join us here at Tech.”

Furst has overall responsibility for all aspects of the College's undergraduate programs, including (jointly with Ellen Zegura) supervisory responsibilities for the office of Student Services. In addition, Furst will establish and monitor a systematic mentoring infrastructure aimed at the professional development of the College's junior faculty - particularly those faculty who join the College fresh from Ph.D. programs. Furst's challenge will be to aggressively enhance the College of Computing’s stature as a national leader in undergraduate computing education, a priority for the College and the Institute. With a focus on innovation and technology, and CoC’s access to a remarkably talented student body, the goal is to be as celebrated for the educational achievements as the College’s research achievements.

Also on February 1, Maureen Biggers becomes assistant dean for diversity and special programs. Biggers has overall responsibility for promoting diversity and diversity-based programs with the College. Bigger's role is to weave diverse student populations and programs into an innovative approach to diversity that places CoC and Georgia Tech among the top ranked institutions in this area. Biggers also has responsibility for a number of programs and initiatives that require dedicated attention from the dean's office.

“Biggers has an extensive background in college-level administration and brings a dedication to diversity goals to this new position,” DeMillo said.

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country with 68 academic faculty and 35 research faculty. The College strives to provide high quality instruction and to integrate computing knowledge into other academic disciplines as well as aspects of daily life. Approximately 1900 students are enrolled in the college; including approximately 1500 undergraduates and more than 400 graduate students, some 260 of which are Ph.D. students.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

“The committee is the direct outgrowth of work by College of Computing professors Beth Mynatt and Amy Bruckman over the past few months to determine the feasibility of a new degree program in this area,” said Dr. Richard DeMillo, Imlay Dean of Computing.

Using "Human-Centered Computing" as a working title, the committee is charged with developing a Ph.D. program proposal that meets the following goals:

Further establish Georgia Tech and the College of Computing as a leader in research and education at the intersection between computing and the myriad ways in which humans use and are affected by computers

Create a cutting-edge program that will differentiate us from other schools with similar programs

Clearly and definitively signal to ourselves, Georgia Tech and the world the breadth and diversity of the College of Computing

Leverage Georgia Tech's strengths in computing, HCI, psychology, cognitive science, multimedia and media studies, human factors, ergonomics, assistive technologies and industrial design

Create stronger synergies between CoC faculty in HCI, AI, Intelligent Systems, Cognitive Science and Learning Science, and create a Ph.D. program that is highly relevant to faculty working in many of these areas

Attract the very best students and faculty whose interests are research and education at the intersection between computing and humans

The committee will initially focus on developing a CoC Ph.D. degree with a strong interdisciplinary orientation, with subsequent plans to work with interested schools to develop a multiple-entry degree similar to degrees in bioinformatics, HCI, and algorithms, combinatorics and optimization (ACO).

“The Ph.D. in HCC is yet another step toward broadening the College’s intellectual base,” said Foley. Nersessian agrees. “We see this as a step in fulfilling and further articulating our vision to extend the boundaries of computing,” she said.

Recent Georgia Tech graduate V. Blair Dowling, who is passionate about mathematics and is a fierce competitor in Ultimate Frisbee, will soon become part of a much larger team. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected her to receive one of 100 fellowships in the new Homeland Security Scholars and Fellows Program. More than 2,500 students nationwide applied for the 100 openings available to undergraduate and graduate students studying a variety of disciplines related to scientific and technological innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission. Dowling graduated in May with degrees in applied mathematics and computer science and a minor in economics.  Dowling will use the three-year graduate fellowship, which includes a stipend and full tuition, to pursue her doctoral degree in mathematics at Princeton University. Her long-term goal is to be a professor of mathematics.

I fell in love with math at a very early age,” said Dowling. “Initially my only goal was to make a contribution to theoretical mathematics – a beautiful result on a pedestal. Over the last four years, my goal has expanded to include the innovation of new applications of mathematics to societal problems – such as the HIV project I’m working on now. I’m looking forward to learning the foundations of mathematics at Princeton, and hope to be able to then teach them to the next generation.”

Dowling feels this fellowship will give her the freedom to concentrate on her studies.  In April when she received an e-mail from one of her math professors suggesting she apply for the fellowship, she had already been offered a teaching fellowship at Princeton, which covered all expenses for four years. Dowling felt the Homeland Security Fellowship provided more flexibility.  As part of the fellowship, Dowling will be required to complete an internship with DHS the summer after her first year.

Dowling, an outstanding student who graduated from Tech with a perfect 4.0 GPA, has received many honors. She was a finalist for the highly prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, which included an intensive application and interview process that she found very thought provoking.  She also received the Phi Kappa Phi Scholarship Cup, awarded each year to the graduating senior with the most outstanding scholastic record in the class.

As an undergraduate, she pursued several research projects. She worked on a joint Georgia Tech - Emory University research project with Dr. Dana Randall, associate professor in the College of Computing and adjunct in the School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech and Dr. Guido Silvestri, assistant professor of medicine at the Emory Vaccine Research Center & Yerkes National Primate Research Center.  The project’s goal is to develop a mathematical model of HIV infection in vivo, along with computer software allowing biologists, to visualize the progression of the disease. For this project, she won first place in the annual UROC (Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Computing) competition. Dowling is involved in ongoing research with the project, and anticipates publication of their work sometime in the next year. Another project was a National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates focusing on elliptic curves and quadratic residue tournaments.

Blair completely embodies the type of student that made me want to become an academic,” said Randall.  “She demonstrated such extreme professionalism and scientific integrity in our HIV modeling research project that it is hard to believe that she was still an undergraduate.  For the project, Blair had to comprehend the immunological dynamics involved in HIV infection at the level of a graduate student in biology, she had to understand partial differential equations used in mathematical modeling and reinterpret them as stochastic equations, and she had to demonstrate proficiency in programming methodologies.  Her enthusiasm and dedication elevated this joint Georgia Tech-Emory project to a level far beyond our original expectations, and we were incredibly fortunate to have her work with us.”

Dowling, from Savannah, Ga., enjoys teaching.  At Georgia Tech she worked as a teaching assistant for Calculus II courses.  One summer, she served as head counselor for a math camp for high school students at Boston University called PROMYS – the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists.

Despite her heavy academic load, Dowling found time for extracurricular activities as well.  She played on the Georgia Tech Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team and additionally served as captain of an intramural ultimate team all four years.  Dowling served as president of the Georgia Tech chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon, the National Math Honor Society, and faculty credit her with reviving this organization and transforming it into a vibrant group that promotes excellence in mathematics and interactions among department faculty and students. Also, Dowling was an active member of Westminster Christian Fellowship and helped organize and raise funds for the renovation of their on-campus building in the spring of 2003.

Through this education program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security supports the growth and mentoring of the next generation of scientists as they study ways to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recovery efforts from attacks that occur. More than 100 experts from a variety of fields reviewed the applications. About one-third of the awards were given to students from engineering disciplines, followed by computer science and math, psychology and social sciences.

More information about the Homeland Security Scholars and Fellows Program is available online at the program website.

Jones returned to the University of Virginia in 1997 after being sworn in as the director of Defense Research and Engineering for the U.S. Department of Defense in June 1993. In that position, she was responsible for the management of the science and technology program which included the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the DoD laboratories, as well as being the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for defense-related scientific and technical matters.

Jones is a member and former vice-chair of the National Science Board. She is also a member of the Defense Science Board and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Corporation. She co-chairs the Commonwealth of Virginia Research and Technology Advisory Commission and has served on other government advisory boards and panels for NASA, the National Research Council, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Jones is currently a member of the board of directors of Science Applications International Corporation and Avaki Corp. Other private sector experience includes serving as a founder and vice pal articles and two books in the area of computer software & systems and cyber-security. Jones holds an A.B. from Rice University in mathematics, a Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Thomas E. Noonan is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Internet Security systems, Inc. (ISS), a leading global provider of information protection solutions that secure IT infrastructure and defend key online assets from attack and misuse. Established in 1994, ISS has soared under Noonan’s leadership with over 1200 employees, operating in 22 countries with an annual revenue of nearly $250 million. Noonan’s management style and vision have been recognized by industry leading publications and associations including Forbes, Business Week and Fortune magazine. He was Ernst and Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1999 and was recently appointed by President Bush to the newly formed National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), as part of homeland defense. Noonan holds a mechanical engineering degree form Georgia Tech and a business degree from Harvard University.

DeMillo returned to academia in 2002 after a career as an executive in industry and government. He was chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard, where he had worldwide responsibility for technology and technology strategy. Prior to joining HP, he was in charge of Information and Computer Sciences Research at Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) in Morristown, New Jersey, where he oversaw the development of many Internet and web-based innovations. He has also directed the Computer and Computation Research Division of the National Science Foundation.

The author of over 100 articles and books, DeMillo's research has spanned several fundamental areas of computer science and includes fundamental innovation in computer security, software engineering and mathematics. His present research interests are focused on information security and nanotechnology. He is active in many aspects of the IT industry, serving on advisory boards and panels, and he is an advisor for several early-stage technology companies. He is a member of the board of directors for RSA Security.

The first annual Atlanta SecureWorld Expo will feature the most advanced physical and digital security products offered by top regional and national manufacturers and solution providers. In addition to keynote presentations, the event will focus on three educational conference tracks that address the most critical security issues today, including public/private partnerships, IT security, workplace violence, security management, bioterrorism, integration of physical and digital security and so much more.

The SecureWorld Expo has partnered with the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS), Southeast Cyber-Crime Institute, Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), InfraGard Atlanta, Information Systems Forensic Association, Georgia Technology Authority, FBI and the GBI.

SecureWorld is the first regional conference combining both physical and information security under a public private partnership. In 2003 SecureWorld Expo will host events in Baltimore, Atlanta, Seattle and Detroit. For additional information on SecureWorld Expo, and details on additional features within the event go to: www.secureworldexpo.com.

The Georgia Tech Student Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (gtACM) won 2nd place at the Southeastern Regional of the 2003 ACM programming competition held in Daytona Beach, Fla. Now, the students start practicing for the March finals and look forward to representing Georgia Tech and Atlanta in the international competition.

Georgia Tech sent four teams, each with three students, to the Southeastern Regional. Out of the 88 teams from 39 universities at the competition, Georgia Tech teams placed second, seventh, 13th, and 22nd. Trayton Otto, Topraj Gurung, and Ryan Wilson made up the top team. Tech was also represented by nine other student participants: Christopher Oezbek, Ankur Kalra, Tyler Weston, Ram Gandhapuneni, Hitesh Kanwathirtha, Michael Sulak, Frank Rietta, Hussain Ali, and Nick Clift.

The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC), established in 1970, is the most prestigious programming competition for the world's universities and colleges. The contest fosters creativity, teamwork and innovation in building new software programs and demonstrates how students perform under pressure. The contest takes place in two stages, first regional competitions and then a worldwide final competition with the winners from each regional.

Two months prior to the competition, students dedicated their Sunday afternoons to seven-hour practices with coach David Van Brackle. TheGeorgia Tech team traveled to Daytona with three College of Computing staff members: Dan Colestock, GTACM chapter sponsor; Maureen Biggers, assistant dean, and Monica Sweat, lecturer.

Thousands of teams compete world-wide in regional contests held from September to December 2003, but only seventy-two teams advance to the World Finals in Prague, Czech Republic on March 28-April 1, 2004. Awards, prizes, scholarships and bragging rights will be at stake for some of the world's finest computing students at the Obecni Dum (Municipal House) of the Czech Republic, courtesy of Mayor Bem and hosts at The Czech Technical University Prague and Charles University.

While the Yellow Jackets’ seat at the World Finals is not yet certain, traditionally, the top two teams from the southeast region advance to the March competition.

About gtACM

Founded in 1947, ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery) is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated toadvancing the arts, sciences, and applications of computer science and information technology. ACM is the professional society for computing professionals. GTACM is the primary student organization for Georgia Tech computer science majors. Activities include organized corporate and faculty presentations and other events, which benefit both undergraduate and graduate students. GTACM also provides an avenue for students to develop corporate leadership skills.

The Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that it has named Richard A. DeMillo as the John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing of the nationally ranked College of Computing, one of the largest computer science programs in the country. DeMillo, one of the most visible figures in the computing industry in recent years, was first Chief Technology Officer for computer giant Hewlett-Packard Company before joining Georgia Tech. He has been a leader making national policy in information technology including in the development of software solutions for the U.S. Defense Department.

He left his position as vice president at HP and recently returned to Georgia Tech to assume the helm of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. He had also previously taught at Tech from 1976-87. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the Internet, DeMillo’s distinguished technology career spans business, government and academia, including major positions at HP, the National Science Foundation (NSF), Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore), Purdue University and Georgia Tech. Effective December 1, DeMillo fills the position formerly held by Dr. Peter A. Freeman, who joined the National Science Foundation in May.

Rich’s vision and three decades of experience are precisely what is needed to lead the College of Computing to even higher levels," said Jean-Lou Chameau, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Georgia Tech. "He brings experience at the highest levels of industry, government, and academia, and his leadership will provide a tremendous boost to the College. His research strengths dovetail perfectly with the research going on currently in the College and his long-time relationships with current faculty ensure a smooth transition and a fast start toward enhancing the reputation of an already solid academic unit."

DeMillo will lead the education, research and outreach activities of the College including such research areas as cognitive science, computer architecture, database systems, educational technology, future computing environments, graphics and visualization, human computer interaction, information security, intelligent systems and robotics, networking and telecommunications, programming languages and compilers, parallel and distributed systems, software engineering, and theoretical computer science.

"This is a very exciting time to be joining the Georgia Tech community, there are tremendous changes taking place in information technology and Georgia Tech has always been at the forefront of that change. I look forward to helping Georgia Tech continue its climb to the very top ranks in computing," said DeMillo.

About DeMillo

At Hewlett-Packard, DeMillo had worldwide responsibility for technology, technology strategy and the HP patent portfolio. He also chaired HP’s Technology Council. DeMillo was responsible for many innovations in the oversight and governance of R&D at HP. He also starred in a national television ad campaign that featured him as a famous inventor that is changing the world but is relatively unknown outside the industry when compared to the type of attention afforded other pop cultural icons.

Prior to joining HP, he directed computer science research and applied research at Telcordia Technologies, in support of Telcordia’s software businesses, telecommunications consulting businesses, as well as government and other externally sponsored R&D.

Prior to joining Telcordia in 1995, DeMillo was professor of computer science at Purdue University and served as director of the Software Engineering Research Center, a NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (a consortium of universities). Under DeMillo’s leadership the Software Engineering Research Center became one of the most successful industrial research consortia in the nation.

From 1989 to 1991, DeMillo was director of the Computer and Computation Research Division at NSF. In this capacity he managed the largest computing research division at NSF and was responsible for most of the academic computer science research in the U.S., including programs in software engineering, theoretical computer science, numeric and symbolic computation, computer architecture, graphics, operating systems and programming languages. Among other achievements at NSF, DeMillo was responsible for successful national initiatives in High Performance Computing and Communications and Computational Biology.

From 1976 until 1987, DeMillo was Professor of Information and Computer Science at Georgia Tech and was founding director of Georgia Tech’s Software Engineering Research Center. DeMillo’s accomplishments as head of this center included the development and successful application of advanced software quality technology to high-visibility national security initiatives and systems such as the Patriot Air Defense System and the Strategic Defense Initiative. He also directed the Software Test and Evaluation Project for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this role DeMillo was the chief architect of Department of Defense policy for software testing and evaluation.

DeMillo has held faculty appointments in Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Electronics and Informatics at the University of Padua in Padua, Italy where he helped establish an international master’s program in software engineering on whose Executive Committee he still serves.

DeMillo received his Doctoral degree in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Tech and received his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

About the College of Computing

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country with 68 academic faculty and 39 research faculty. The College strives to provide high quality instruction and to integrate computing knowledge into other academic disciplines as well as aspects of daily life. Approximately 2,000 students are enrolled in the college, including approximately 1,580 undergraduates and 410 graduate students, some 270 of which are Ph.D. students. The College is ranked 12th overall at the doctoral level and houses several interdisciplinary research centers including the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU), Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS), and the Modeling & Simulation Research and Education Center (MSREC).

In an effort to achieve that goal, the Atlanta Fire Department approached Georgia Tech about developing a fire command training simulator to better prepare their officers to react in emergencies. Collaborating with the Atlanta Fire Department, Georgia Tech researchers are refining a training application using virtual environment technology—immersive computer-generated experiences—to better train fire commanders directing teams of firefighters.

“The key here is the safety of the firefighters,” says Captain W.G. May, special projects coordinator, Atlanta Fire Department. “By reducing the dangers involved in training, we can greatly lower the chance of a firefighter injury.”

This application simulates the progress of a fire in a single-family home and responds to the orders made by the fire commander on the scene. The virtual environment allows the user to navigate around the fire scene and view a house on fire from any angle; to direct firefighters and watch them execute commands; and see realistic fire and smoke behavior reacting to changes in the environment such as the opening of windows.

By reducing the dangers involved in training, we can greatly lower the chance of a firefighter injury." - Captain W.G. May

“The world that firefighters work in is incredibly complex. Every fire and every situation is different, so a virtual environment, which can be changed fairly easily, is a good fit for this type of training,” says Dr. Chris D. Shaw, senior research scientist in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing and faculty member of the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center, who leads the project.

The Firefighter Command Training Virtual Environment is designed as a training tool to be used by the fire company officer, who usually commands a four- to eight-person company of firefighters who respond to fire emergencies. The officer usually has a number of years of experience as a firefighter and has trained to be an officer in the classroom and by practicing command procedure at the fire department’s training ground.

However, these training methods are limited. First, not all fire companies see all types of emergencies in equal amounts; some companies may see many more fires than others. The overall number of fires has declined over the years -- only about 3 percent of calls to the Atlanta Fire Department are for fires. Second, practice training always takes place at the training ground in exactly the same fireproof building, so realism and the element of surprise are limited. The virtual environment, on the other hand, can provide a variety of scenarios in a more realistic way and with less risk and expense than training with real fires.

“When I came to Georgia Tech for graduate school, I was interested in working in computer graphics and with virtual reality, so this project was a good fit,” said Tazama St. Julien, third year computer science Ph.D. student. “The visit to the actual fire training ground and seeing fires up close and personal was pretty interesting and fun.”

In the prototype application, Shaw and his team of students created a virtual environment with a furnished one-story house with a garage, a fire truck, firefighters, tools, and fire hydrant. The user, the fire company officer, sees the house on fire on a computer screen or a head-mounted display and gives verbal commands as he would in a real fire. The system operator types the officer’s commands into the computer system via code. The project team decided to handle the command input in this fashion rather than incorporating a voice recognition system to translate the voice commands due to their unreliability for multiple users. Also, having an operator input the commands rather than the user allows the user to concentrate on evaluating the situation and making decisions. This arrangement also allows the operator to set up mistakes or traps for the user, again creating a more realistic experience. The officer then sees animated firefighters reacting to his commands, such as laying hoses or climbing onto the roof to cut a hole over the fire. Also, every 15 seconds the visuals of the smoke and fire change in reaction to the officer’s commands.

“Due to the number of factors involved, the project has proven technically challenging. The Atlanta Fire Department told us that accuracy is important. If the fire in our virtual environment doesn’t respond like a real fire would to a door opening, for example, then it’s not very useful as a training tool. So we’ve concentrated on accuracy in the amount of smoke and fire produced, for example, which is a huge amount of data to calculate,” said Shaw.

Significant improvements have been made since the original prototype was created. Originally, the animated firefighters moved like robots; now the application includes motion scripts to make the firefighters’ movements more realistic.

“It has been amazing to see this project develop. The early stages were simply cylinders representing firefighters that hopped through a house with little candle flames sprouting from the floor. Now, we have firefighters that can walk, climb ladders, ventilate a roof, spray water, etc. The fire is very realistic, not only in the way it looks but in its behavior as well. For example, if the house has a limited oxygen supply, the fire will smolder and burn slower,” says May.

Due to the complexity of calculating the amount of smoke and fire produced, the team turned to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which studies why firefighters die and compiles extensive data on this problem. The Georgia Tech team is using NIST’s Fire Dynamic Simulator to compute realistic physical fire and smoke behavior. Due to the lengthy time to accurately compute the volume of fire and smoke, the team pre-computed the data for the entire house at one-second increments, and the system uses the pre-computed data to visualize and animate the fire and smoke in the virtual environment. On a current PC, the Fire Dynamic Simulator takes about eight hours to compute one minute of data, making it impossible to calculate the smoke and fire in real time.

“The majority of my work has been on the volume renderer,” said St. Julien. “I worked with the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) to simulate the fire and smoke data, then render or draw a visualization of that data in the virtual environment. This took learning the input and output file format for FDS, learning how to use FDS, and learning how to efficiently render the data. My other main contributions are path finding, the hose animation, control of the firemen, and the fire simulation.”

Other challenges for this project include the need to develop compression techniques to make the huge data files manageable. The exponential growth of choices and conditions -- such as opening doors, spraying water -- result in an exponential increase in data. Also, the team had to create realistic-looking 3-D visuals of fire and smoke to accurately indicate to the officer the amount of soot, heat and smoke. At the scene of a real fire, officers look for these factors to determine the cause and type of fire to guide their decisions.

“The firefighter project had a compelling blend of the technical challenges I’m interested in: graphics and artificial intelligence, as well as concrete, real-world applicability,” said Dan Cunning, senior in computer science. “I am currently working on creating a more realistic looking fire simulation, exploring the possibilities of using different textures and transparency for different parts of the fire, and possibly using fragment and vertex shaders, a fairly cutting-edge technology. Most undergrads have no clue how easy it is to start working with one of the research groups on campus.”

The Firefighter Command project has provided hands-on experience to a number of computer science seniors and graduate students. Typically, a student is assigned to work on a specific component of this complex project. The team continues to refine the technical aspects of the application including developing a more complex path selection of the various choices a commander might make.

Housed in the new Technology Square Research Building, the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center, an interdisciplinary research center at Georgia Tech, fosters collaborations in computing and information technology research among Georgia Tech faculty and students. With more than 40 faculty and 150 affiliated students from the disciplines of Computing; Psychology; Architecture; Literature, Communication and Culture; and Electrical and Computer Engineering, GVU has gained international recognition in the research areas of graphics, animation, virtual reality, human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, wearable computing, 3-D compression, robotics, perception, collaborative web spaces and online communities.

DeMillo will direct the applied research, education and outreach activities of GTISC, which was named a National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education last year. GTISC has developed courses for a Master’s Degree in Information Security and new basic research and educational funding of approximately $2.7 million for FY 2001. GTISC focuses on researching security technologies, policy research on information security, information security education, applied research and development, and service and outreach to academia, government and industry.

"Rich is an outstanding addition to GTISC, the College of Computing and to Georgia Tech," said Jean-Lou Chameau, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Georgia Tech. "He is highly regarded in the worlds of industry, government, and academia and his presence will provide our information security initiative a tremendous boost," he said.

"He brings incredible experience and knowledge from his impressive career in academia, government, and business," said Ellen Zegura, interim Dean of the College of Computing. "Our students and faculty will benefit greatly from his presence at Tech," she said.

"This is a very exciting time to be joining the Georgia Tech community, and I hope I will be able to contribute to Tech’s long-term success," said DeMillo. "Information security has become the critical technology problem of the decade and I look forward to helping Georgia Tech become a national resource in Cyber Security."

GTISC was established in Spring 1998 upon the recommendation by business, government and education leaders meeting at Georgia Tech for the Sam Nunn NationsBank Policy Forum entitled, "Information Security: Risks, Opportunities, & the Bottom Line."

The Center uses an interdisciplinary approach to conducting research and development in the field of information security. Its mission is to conduct research contributing to the development and testing of concepts, techniques, and models that will become the foundation for the discipline of information security; to develop and commercialize new information security technologies; and to educate and train information security professionals through degree, non-degree, and public information programs. The interdisciplinary center reports to the Office of the Provost and involves faculty from the College of Computing, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and the School of Public Policy—both schools in the Ivan Allen College.

“With this recognition Georgia Tech celebrates your long-term accomplishments in the field of networking and your exemplary teaching and educational leadership, and your service to the profession and to the Institute,” said Dr. Bob McMath, professor of history and vice provost for undergraduate studies. “This elevation to the rank of Regents' Professor brings with it universal recognition on the Georgia Tech campus as an intellectual and educational leader of the highest order,” he said.

Georgia Tech is allowed to nominate up to two individuals per year for appointment as Regents' Professors. Those considered already hold the rank of (full) professor and are nominated by their colleges based on excellence in research and teaching and contributions to their profession and to Georgia Tech over a considerable period of time. A committee made up of Regents' Professors and other chaired professors representing all six of the colleges considers the nominations and makes a recommendation to the Provost.

“Mostafa is very deserving of this prestigious award for his years of world-class research, teaching and leadership in networking,” said Dick Lipton, professor and Frederick G. Storey Chair in Computing who represented the College on the Institute’s selection committee.

Ammar joined the College of Computing in September 1985 (then the School of Information and Computer Science) as an assistant professor. He is a member of the College’s Networking and Telecommunications Group and is also a faculty member of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. His research is in the area of computer networks architectures, protocols and services with specific interests and contributions in multimedia and multicast communication, scalable content distribution services, large-scale network simulation and peer-to-peer networks.

Ammar became an IEEE Fellow in 2002, cited “for contributions to the design of scalable multimedia services and their network support.” He has served as Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking journal since 1999.

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country with 68 academic faculty and 39 research faculty. The College strives to provide high quality instruction and to integrate computing knowledge into other academic disciplines as well as aspects of daily life. Approximately 1900 students are enrolled in the college, including approximately 1500 undergraduates and more than 400 graduate students, some 260 of which are Ph.D. students.

After all, two other researchers -- Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman -- received the prestigious Marconi Foundation award in 2000 for advancing PKI technology, which paved the way for virtually every secure online transaction. But Merkle accepts that notoriety is fickle and understands that his well-documented contributions are known to anyone truly interested in infosecurity. Most Stanford University patents for public keys credit his work, and Merkle's research, which he began in the early 1970s, is cited in dozens of cryptography books.

"The awareness of people's specific contributions in highly technical areas is often highly variable," Merkle says. "I actually feel quite fortunate to have as high a level of recognition as I have had. Looking at it objectively, quite a few people in the industry are aware of my contributions."

One reason why Merkle's work may have been somewhat overlooked is that he hasn't devoted his entire career to infosecurity. For years, he devoted most of his attention to cutting-edge nanotechnology research, most recently with a startup in Dallas. He did, however, continue some infosecurity work on the side.

When the Georgia Institute of Technology called with an offer to take over its Information Security Center, Merkle knew the time had come to focus more on infosecurity.

"Interest in computer security is driven by events, and the number of events is increasing dramatically," he says. "That means that resources are now available that weren't 10 or 20 years ago. When there were no resources, working on the problem was a lot less interesting. Now that there's been this huge shift, it makes the whole thing a lot more fun."

Rich Demillo, the dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, says that as soon as Merkle surfaced as a candidate, the university moved to land him. And while not all of his students know of his seminal contributions to the field, they quickly realize he has a lot to offer.

"He's such an understated guy," Demillo says. "But the students catch on real quick. They can tell right away there's a lot of substance there."

More Information:
Information Security Magazine Article

A native of Huntsville, Ala., Ozment becomes only the second Georgia Tech student in 20 years to win the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, established in 1953 for U.S. students by the British in appreciation for assistance received after the Second World War under the Marshall Plan. Financed by the British Government, the Scholarships provide an opportunity for American students, who have demonstrated academic excellence and leadership potential, to continue their studies for two or three years at a British University.

Long regarded as one of the highest undergraduate accolades, the Marshall Scholarship covers the scholar's tuition costs, books, travel and living expenses while in the United Kingdom. Prominent former Marshall scholars include the U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Breyer; former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt; The New York Times foreign affairs columnist, Tom Friedman; and the scientist/inventor, Ray Dolby.

As an undergraduate, Ozment was well rounded academically and active in the Georgia Tech community. In addition to his B.S. in computer science, Ozment obtained certificates in history, music and business Spanish, and served as a teaching assistant. Ozment was a President's Scholar, a member of the Honor Advisory Council and a Georgia Tech Ambassador. In addition to his stellar academic performance, Ozment was a cooperative education student at Nortel Networks and pursued undergraduate research. His research project on cheating resulted in a presentation at the 2000 conference of the American Society of Engineering Education and was published in the proceedings.

Currently Ozment is a full-time Research Scientist for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, working for both the Computing and Networking Services (CNS) group and the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC). On a part-time basis, Ozment is pursuing an M.S. degree at Georgia Tech in Information Security with an emphasis on technical policy.

"We are extremely happy for Andy in winning this prestigious Marshall award and are proud of his accomplishments as a student in the College," said Peter A. Freeman, dean of the College of Computing. "Andy is indicative of the caliber of student we seek to attract in the College, and this award serves as an encouragement to faculty as well as our students for the work we are doing in our program."

Marshall Scholarship Web Site

The NNIN, expected to launch in January, will be led by Cornell University. Other member universities are Georgia Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Howard University; North Carolina State University; Pennsylvania State University; Stanford University; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Michigan; the University of Minnesota; the University of New Mexico, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington.

Goals for the network go beyond academic research. They will also include educational efforts involving students from kindergarten through high school as well as industry outreach activities.

Some 41 students in the College participated in the survey, conducted from March 30 ­ August 15, including one Ph.D. graduate. The students were among 670 students from 35 computer science programs nationally participating in the survey and 32,000 graduate students from 1,300 doctoral programs across all disciplines.

The web-based survey consisted of 48 questions in nine areas relevant to doctoral education: information provided for prospective students, preparation for a broad range of careers, teaching and teaching assistantship preparation, professional development, career guidance and placement services, controlling time to degree, mentoring, program climate, and overall satisfaction. The College ranked higher in nearly every category than the national average. Students gave the College highest marks for mentoring (A-), preparation for a broad range of careers (B+), and overall satisfaction (B+). Complete results may be viewed at http//survey.nagps.org.

Other computer science programs ranked in the top quartile include Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-San Diego and the University of Washington ­ Seattle.

"We strive to constantly improve the student experience at all levels in the College and to create a nurturing environment and a sense of community by listening and responding to students¹ needs," said Dr. Peter A. Freeman, John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of the College of Computing. "This survey is a strong indication that we are succeeding at the doctoral level and mirrors what we have heard from our students as well."

Dr. Larry Hodges, Ph.D. recruiting committee chair, says that he is not surprised at the results of the survey. "The size of our faculty and the vast variety of innovative research projects and groups in the College of Computing gives each of our students a great deal of choice in terms of research areas and advisors," he said.

NAGPS is an advocacy organization representing 900,000 graduate and professional students across 200 campuses in the U.S. dedicated to improving the quality of graduate and professional student life in the United States.

This year’s event on April 16 drew some 28 research projects, the most to date. In addition, “the quality of all of the projects was truly outstanding,” according to UROC co-chair and assistant professor Amy Bruckman, and the competition becomes stiffer each year. The event involves exhibits of students’ projects, while a panel of faculty judges choose winners, and a separate set of winners are picked by popular vote. Microsoft Corporation sponsored the event and generously donated prizes for the student winners. Handspring also donated products for student awards and raffle prizes.

UROC is modeled after the UROP program at MIT where Bruckman received her Ph.D. from the Media Lab's Epistemology and Learning group in 1997. UROC ensures that undergraduate research assistants are able to make meaningful contributions, while enhancing their educational experience. “Whether going on to industry or graduate school, all students should include research as part of their experience at Tech,” Bruckman said. Assistant Professor and UROC co-chair Tucker Balch agreed and added that he is pleased to see a growing cultural appreciation and awareness of the importance of research among CoC students.

Following is the list of winner’s from the 2003 UROC Symposium:

JUDGES' AWARDS

1ST PLACE:
Blair Dowling
"A Stochastic Model for HIV Infection"
Advisor: Dana Randall

2ND PLACE:
Ravi Ruddarraju
"Fast Multiple Camera Head Pose Tracking"
Advisor: Irfan Essa

3RD PLACE:
Yushi Jing
"Speaker Detection"
Advisor: Jim Rehg

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS:
221 ballots cast

1ST PLACE:
Akshay Dayal, Jeffrey Tchang, Lili Lili, Shivank Dua, and Umang Dua
"Biometric Interface using a Galvanic Skin Response System"
Advisor: Melody Moore

2ND PLACE:
Yushi Jing
"Speaker Detection"
Advisor: Jim Rehg

3RD PLACE:
Stephen Frowe Ingram and Pravin Bhat
"Volume Analogies"
Advisor: Greg Turk

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the technological godfather of things stealth, smart bullets and the Internet, is sponsoring a road race this week --- with one overriding entry requirement.

Only robots need apply.

The race, called the DARPA Grand Challenge, begins Saturday at dawn at the Slash X Ranch near Barstow, Calif. The still-secret course is guaranteed to be a grueling grind over 200 miles of blue highways, back roads, trails and open desert from Barstow to the Nevada state line.

Twenty-five robots with assorted pedigrees --- modified Humvees, souped-up sport utility vehicles, dune buggies, all-terrain vehicles, a six-wheeled military truck and a motorcycle --- will vie for a congressionally authorized prize of $1 million.

The winner also gets bragging rights to one of the most daunting challenges robots have ever faced: that distinctly human, infinitely complex activity we call driving.

With or without a winner, the Defense Department's top research agency believes the interest generated by the race will stimulate some grassroots innovations that might be useful in future military robots. Under a congressional mandate to make a third of the country's military vehicles autonomous by 2015, DARPA has already funded dozens of research projects to develop machines that can replace human soldiers.

New ideas wanted

But they're still looking for a few good machines --- and the race is intended to draw out fresh approaches to robotics from universities and entrepreneurial companies that might never think about applying for million-dollar defense contracts.

Robotic contests aren't really new. There are hundreds every year --- robo-soccer championships, robotic egg hunts, robotic firefighting competitions, cleaning robot contests, even robotic sumo matches.Robots do a lot of serious work these days, too. They assemble automobiles, solder circuit boards, sweep floors, answer telephones, and even assist doctors in surgery. At the moment, roving robots are trundling across hostile terrain 100 million miles from Earth --- revealing details of a Martian landscape that no human has ever set foot on.

So far, however, robots haven't done much driving, and for good reason: They're not very good at it.

A robotic van "drove" from Pittsburgh to San Diego in 1995, but there was a human in the driver's seat, just in case. The van-bot did fine on interstate highways, but it never mastered the exit ramps and intersections. Robotics enthusiasts counter that 43,000 traffic fatalities a year prove humans aren't great drivers, either.

But Saturday's race is a sign of the changing times. These drivers are also the driven. For 200 miles, the entrants will be guided entirely by satellite navigation systems, racing through thousands of interim waypoints --- precise points of longitude and latitude --- to the finish line.

Computers and sensors aboard the vehicles will be entirely responsible for the steering, turning, braking and accelerating as they cross the desert.

The final course --- chosen from more than 1,200 miles of possible routes --- won't be disclosed to participants until two hours before the race.

The vehicles, including the University of Alaska's Arctic Tortoise, Louisiana State University's CajunBot and Virginia Tech's club car Cliff, will have 10 hours to cover the course.

Defense officials are promising that: "The route will include surfaced and unsurfaced roads, trails, and off-road areas. Manmade and natural obstacles --- both above and below the surface of the average terrain --- are likely. Examples of obstacles include ditches, washboard, open water, rocks, underpasses, construction, power line towers, barbed wire fences and other vehicles."
Opinions among robotics experts vary about whether the race should be known as the grand challenge or the impossible dream.

"You're talking about a course over very rough roads and open desert," says Frank Dellaert, co-director of Georgia Tech's robotics lab, which is not participating in the race. "I would have trouble driving some of these roads myself. I think it's beyond the capabilities of autonomous vehicles today."

One robotics team has already reinforced those sentiments. Team Overbot, made up of former Stanford University engineering students and Silicon Valley volunteers, dropped out of the race last month, announcing that they were "not able to deliver a safe autonomous vehicle in time."

Interest running high

Mark Maimone of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will watch the competition with special interest. He's well aware of the potential pitfalls. He wrote the software now being used by NASA's Mars rovers.

"It is a huge challenge to operate the rovers on Mars, but this is a lot different," Maimone says. "It takes the Mars rovers a minute and a half to scan what's ahead and make a decision. At the speeds these vehicles will be traveling, they are going to have to do that 20 times a second.

"The real challenge is to pull all of the sensing and control systems together and make them respond quickly," he says. "Robots don't do well with changing situations. The real world is very confusing to them."

A more confident Chuck Thorpe, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, says, "It's all going to depend on the course. Cliffs and ravines aren't the problem, but if there are nasty, tricky obstacles like water-filled holes you can't see the bottom of, or fence poles hidden behind a yucca plant, it may be no one will make it."

If any entrant does, Thorpe and other experts agree that it will very likely be Team Red, headed by his CMU colleague William "Red" Whittaker, who heads the school's field robotics laboratory and has 30 years of experience designing robotic vehicles.

Whittaker and more than 50 students have spent the last year building and testing Sandstorm, a 1986 Humvee that --- with $3.5 million in refinements --- reportedly does a pretty good job of driving itself.

Unlike other teams, Whittaker's has spent months building detailed maps of the possible race routes across the Mojave Desert. No matter how well a robot drives, it won't get where it's going if it doesn't know where it is --- just like a human driver.

The "computer farm" that serves as Sandstorm's road map holds 16 terabytes of data, enough to fill 100 hard drives on a desktop computer.

Another team, the Palos Verdes Road Warriors, may not bring as much robotic experience to the competition, but its members make up for it with youthful optimism.

The 40 gifted high school students, who each get five hours of research credit, are modifying a 2003 Acura SUV to enable it to drive itself, something many of them are still too young to do.

Under the tutelage of science teacher Graham Robertson, the Palos Verdes students have received donations of a new Acura SUV --- renamed Doom Buggy --- and $40,000 worth of electronic gear. From time to time, they also get a little friendly advice from engineers at nearby institutions like Cal Tech, the University of South California, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Even DARPA has doubts about whether driverless vehicles will be able to conquer the California outback. If no one wins, the race will be run again next year. And the year after that.

"It's hard to say who came up with the precise idea for this Grand Challenge," recalls DARPA Director Anthony Tether. "We were having a bull session. In the military that's a bunch of generals sitting around a table.

"We were all thinking about, God, you know, these unmanned vehicles really are the way to go. But how are we going to energize people, how are we going to get people out of the garages?"

Racers, venue changed

Once the race was announced, energizing people was definitely not a problem: More than 100 robotics teams applied. Realizing that 100 robots racing across Southern California might be hard to manage, the agency cut the field to 25.

Also changed was the venue, originally billed from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The idea of a pack of driverless vehicles roaring down Los Angeles freeways was deemed too ambitious for the current state of robotics technology.

Even with the empty quarter of the Mojave Desert between Barstow and the current finish line at Primm, Nev., DARPA is being careful. Judges will shadow each robot to make sure they don't run amok, or try to run each other off the road. Race rules require the robots to give the right-of-way to other vehicles.

Accidents, of course, are not always avoidable.

"They have insurance, just in case," says race spokesman Don Shipley, "They have taken out a lot of insurance."

And some fear that, at speeds that might reach 50 mph, the robots also pose a threat to the desert tortoise --- a federally threatened species and the official state reptile of California. Sluggish after a winter of hibernation, the tortoises usually emerge from their burrows this time of year.

Under orders from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, teams of biologists will sweep the race corridor before the competition, moving any tortoises out of harm's way and fencing their burrows until the robots pass.

The tortoises, which have resided in the Mojave for 60 million years and, as individuals, often live to be 100, probably won't pay much mind.

Off-roading is common in this part of the desert. And from inside a tortoise shell at ground level, it's pretty hard to tell whether someone's behind the wheel or not.

HOW THEY NAVIGATE
Each vehicle travels the course through a series of waypoints. Each waypoint has a different circumference in which vehicles must enter before advancing to the next waypoint. If a vehicle goes outside the boundaries, DARPA can remotely shut off the vehicle.
Map shows course from START: Barstow to FINISH: Primm, Nev.
Shading indicates land elevations from sea level and below to 12,000+ ft.
Diagram of waypoints shows course line and areas where teams must enter.
Each waypoint determines vehicle speed. If a vehicle travels faster than the recommended speed, it will be disqualified.

The action-packed agenda offers keynotes from Leonard Haynes of Southern Company and Dr. Richard DeMillo, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech along with speakers from companies such as Earthlink, Equifax, Ga. Department of Revenue, Experient, Noro-Moseley, Ga. State University, Gyst Group and others. For the first time the conference will also include a track dedicated to legal issues covering topics on electronic contracting, identity theft and data privacy. Attendees can even receive CLE credits toward continuing education.

EC Day 2003 exhibitors currently include AeA, B2B Technologies, Ceridian, Easylink Services, ForestExpress, IT Manna, Kennesaw State University, King & Spalding, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Sevista, Segue Software, Sterling Commerce, Southern Company, User Insight and Valicert. Conference attendees will visit with these organizations during breaks to learn more about the latest in e-Commerce trends and technologies.

The conference will feature respected electronic commerce thought leader, Leonard Haynes, executive vice president of Southern Company, as the morning keynote. Mr. Haynes’ remarks will include a discussion of the e-business strategy for America’s most admired Electric and Gas Utility, according to Fortune magazine’s 2002 and 2003 lists.

Dr. Richard DeMillo, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech and past CTO for Hewlett-Packard will provide the luncheon keynote address on the topic of security. He will share his insights into how corporate, government and academic communities can work together to help achieve a common goal of providing a more secure world that contributes to, rather than detracts from, the bottom line.

Ideal for mid-level and senior executives who need to understand the latest issues surrounding electronic commerce, EC Day 2003 offers a total of four tracks that encompass strategies and tactics, public policy, future trends and legal issues. The complete agenda with registration information is available at www.atlecf.org. The seminar is only $225 for members or $275 for guests.

The AECF is the oldest and largest non-profit trade association in Georgia, focused exclusively on business and technology issues relating to electronic commerce. Via a strong membership base that includes Atlanta’s largest companies as well as emerging technology firms, the organization is able to provide an environment that fosters the development of best practices in e-commerce while maintaining an unbiased, non-commercial atmosphere.

GECA is a not-for-profit partnership of public and private sector organizations working together to reshape public policy for a knowledge economy. GECA advocates a favorable environment for electronic commerce and government by supporting public policy that is market driven, predictable, sustainable, simple, fair, technology and media neutral and harmonized.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

WWW 2004 is a highly competitive conference with over 1,000 attendees. The paper was selected from an initial list of 506 submissions for the Refereed Research Papers Track, and the “Best Paper Award” was presented at the closing ceremony on Friday of May 21. For more information, visit http://www.www2004.org/awards.htm

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

The paper was selected from an initial list of 265 submissions. Sigmetrics - Performance presents papers on the development and application of state of the art, broadly applicable analytic, simulation, and measurement-based performance evaluation techniques. For more information, visit http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sigm2004.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

For their senior-level computer design course, computer science majors at Georgia Tech are required to complete a significant team project. The project’s teams usually consist of four students who spend between 750 – 1,000 hours working on the project over the 15-week semester. Students have a choice of either a project of personal interest or one for an off-campus client. Many students include this capstone project in their portfolio and seek challenging projects. “The most appealing aspect of this project was the fact it's for a good cause—feeding the hungry,” says Zipperer, recent computer science graduate from the Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “To me, it was a lot more motivating to know the system I was designing might help put food on some family's table than to be writing a new system for an insurance firm would have been.”

Cut Out Hunger is a volunteer effort that provides a website listing the best deals at specific grocery stores in 10 markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and Long Island, New York, matching sales with grocery coupons available in the Sunday newspaper to maximize savings. The free site's objective is to help people save money and increase food donations to local hunger organizations. Stephanie Nelson, the founder and driving force behind Cut Out Hunger, approached Georgia Tech because she knew her Cut Out Hunger website’s old technology was inefficient. Nelson founded Cut Out Hunger several years ago when she realized there are thousands of store and manufacturer coupons that never get used and these unused coupons and in-store specials could be used to fill community food banks and soup kitchens. Her idea was simple - since in-store specials make some products practically free, buy it even if it’s not your product of choice and donate it to a food bank.

“We push our students to find a project that's interesting technically but also has real world impact,” says Dr. John Stasko, associate professor in the College of Computing and faculty adviser for the team. Stasko says the team concentrated on the architecture and database access for the Cut Out Hunger website, which greatly reduced the amount of administrative and upkeep time Nelson had to spend each week entering the week's coupons and in-store specials. The re-design greatly reduced the labor-intensive process of entering long UPC codes into a spreadsheet. In addition, Stasko says the team did a good job working with the client to understand her needs and design a solution for her. Nelson, an admitted technology novice, was unaware of the possibilities of automating and simplifying her weekly website updates.

Nelson says the new website and database system designed and built by the students have reduced her data-entry time each week from 15 hours per week for just the Atlanta market to 5 hours per week for 10 markets. The estimated savings for those using the Cut Out Hunger site is $200 a month per family (10,000 current users) for a total $24 million each year, according to Nelson. “I am deeply grateful to Georgia Tech and these students for their creativity, their many hours of work, and their determination to improve the functionality of this website. Their contribution is worth thousands of dollars, and it will help retain more long-term web site users. As a result, more people will save money and donate food to feed the hungry,” says Nelson.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked among U.S. News & World Report 's top 10 public universities, Georgia Tech educates nearly 17,000 students every year through its Colleges of Engineering, Management, Computing, Sciences, Architecture and Liberal Arts. Tech maintains a diverse campus and is the nation's top producer of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 80 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute. During the 2002-2003 academic year, Tech totaled more than $660 million in research awards and expenditures.

More information about Cut Out Hunger is online at www.cutouthunger.org.

NGA Chairman Governor Kempthorne is launching an initiative on long-term care and healthy aging to NGA Chairman Governor Kempthorne is launching an initiative on long-term care and healthy aging to help confront existing and future healthcare challenges in America . Georgia Tech's Vice Provost for Research Charles Liotta and the College of Computing's Imlay Dean of Computing Richard DeMillo, joined researchers of the Aware Home Research Initiative, led by members of the GVU Center, to emphasize Georgia Tech's dedication to developing new technologies to promote independent and healthy aging within the home environment. As the first wave of baby boomers will reach the retirement age within the next seven years, putting an unprecedented level of stress on the U.S. healthcare structure, it is becoming essential to develop awareness technologies that can provide assistance to the aging population, thereby enabling senior adults to stay in their own homes longer, as opposed to moving to an assisted living facility.

Former Director of the Aware Home Research Initiative and College of Computing (CoC) Associate Professor, Gregory Abowd, recently testified before both the U.S. Senate's Committee on Aging and the National Governor's Association chiefs of staff and health policy advisors, increasing state and federal level awareness of the interdisciplinary research endeavors within the Aware Home Research Initiative and encouraging the gubernatorial visit to the Aware Home. Elizabeth Mynatt, CoC associate professor and new director of the Aware Home Research Initiative as of January 1, led the Governors' visit with an overview of the AHRI, and then guided the distinguished visitors as they participated in three project demonstrations. The first demonstration, called "What was I Cooking?" illustrated Ph.D. student Quan Tran's research of memory aid technologies. Next, Psychology Professor Dan Fisk and Ph.D. students Anne McLaughlin and Yan Huang featured their work with the "Blood Glucose Monitor" project, demonstrating how technology can assist with the accuracy of self administered tests and activities. Associate Professor Irfan Essa, who is also working on the Blood Glucose Monitor project, was instrumental in addressing questions from the governors. Finally, Ph.D. student Jim Rowan provided the guests with a demonstration of the "Digital Family Portrait" project, which provides a visual display for an adult child to monitor the day-to-day activity levels of their elderly parent, who is living in a different location.

TIDSE 2004 brought together researchers, developers and practitioners working in the areas of art and design, human sciences, computer sciences and related areas. The conference covered a wide range of story and entertainment related invetigations including authoring, user interfaces, games, dramaturgy and applications. Conference participators got a deep insight into innovative technologies of TIDSE, relevant for commerce and industry. It was a platform for communication and exchange of new ideas to improve game industries, interactive entertainment, information management, web technologies, education and training, infotainment, movie industry and industry with world wide dependences. The conference featured several informal get-together possibilities to give room for talks and contacts. For more information, visit http://www.zgdv.de/TIDSE04.

The first two undergraduate students graduating with a B.S. in Computer Science with an Information Assurance certificate are James P. (Jim) Gruen and Stephen C. (Craig) Wampler. The recently approved Information Assurance certificate is a joint program between the College of Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

After graduation, Gruen and Wampler both plan to work for the National Security Agency (NSA). They both participated in Cyber Corps, a scholarship opportunity for students in either the Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarship Program or the NSF Scholarship for Service Program, designed to increase and strengthen the cadre of federal information assurance professionals who protect the government’s critical information infrastructure.

Another Cyber Corps participant, Sheree N. Elliott, graduated with a Master of Science in Information Security. Two years ago, Elliot was the first Georgia Tech student selected for the Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarship Program. Elliot interned with NSA last summer and plans to work for the agency after graduation. She received her undergraduate degree in computer science from Clark Atlanta University, a historically black college and university (HBCU) partner with GTISC.

As a designated National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in Information Security Assurance Education, GTISC has a unique information security education and scholarship partnership with three HBCUs in Atlanta-Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Spelman College.

The team will face a series of six to eight complex, real-world programming challenges, to be completed in less than five hours. These grueling problems are designed to test not only programming skills, but also creativity and teamwork. Huddled around a single computer, competitors will race against the clock in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance. Teammates will collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds and build software systems that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges. Linux¹ and Eclipse² provide the backbone for the contest-programming environment under an open source paradigm at this year’s ACM-ICPC.

If the “Yellow Jackets” solve the most problems correctly in the least amount of time, they will be international collegiate programming champions and bring the championship back to the U.S. for the first time since 1997. Stay tuned for World Finals results or get the latest updates from http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals/.
______________________________

¹ Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM and Linux, visit www.ibm.com/linux. *Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

² Eclipse is an open platform for tool integration built by an open community of tool providers. Operating under an open source paradigm, with a common public license that provides royalty free source code and world wide redistribution rights, the eclipse platform provides tool developers with ultimate flexibility and control over their software technology. Visit www.eclipse.org<http://www.eclipse.org> to discover more!

Each year the president recognizes the people and institutions that have provided broad opportunities for participation by women, minorities and people with disabilities in science, mathematics and engineering in elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate education. Each award includes a $10,000 grant for continued mentoring work.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education programs across all fields of science and engineering, administers the awards on behalf of the White House. In the eight years the awards have been made, 78 individuals and 62 institutions have been recognized. The program allows for an annual maximum of 10 awards each for individuals and institutions.

Recipients of this year's individual awards include a range of professionals from chemical engineering and computer science to biology and medicine. Their innovative approaches include comprehensive programs and enrichment activities for K-12 students to initiatives aimed at reaching a continuum of students from early childhood through undergraduates, using such community resources as schools and churches.

Christine Grant, currently at North Carolina State University, is one of only six tenured African-American women faculty members in chemical engineering nationwide. Her outreach activities serve students from K-12 through graduate education. She includes students in her research agenda, and she gives additional attention to mentoring junior faculty. She has built an array of activities that seek to stop leaks in the academic pipeline for women and students from traditionally under-represented groups and teaches students how to work within the system.

Calvin Mackie, currently at Tulane University, is a tenured associate professor of mechanical engineering. His mentoring and outreach activities extend to pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate populations. Active in the community, speaking to large audiences and to schools, Mackie is authentic, humorous and has a high-energy, charismatic style in communicating science. He also develops video and other visual materials. His skill in using a unique cultural framework in his mentoring has effectively motivated students from diverse backgrounds to succeed.

Also recognized during the noon ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were: Chellu S. Chetty, professor of biology, Savannah State University; Denice D. Denton, dean of engineering, University of Washington; Linda Bailey Hayden, professor of computer science, Elizabeth City State University; Rudolf E. Henning, professor of electrical engineering, University of South Florida; Ellis Ingram, University of Missouri-Columbia; Lisa Pruitt, professor of biomedical engineering, University of California-Berkeley, and; Margaret Werner-Washburne, professor of biology, University of New Mexico.

The institutional awards recognize organizations that have developed mentoring approaches that encourage improved achievement, keeping young students in the "pipeline" of science, engineering and mathematics education, and creating peer mentoring programs.

The institutional honors went to: American Physiological Society; Center for the Advancement of Hispanics in Science & Engineering Education; Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, Computing Research Association (CRA-W); CONNECT, University of California at Riverside; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's "Increasing Ph.D.s for Underrepresented Minorities;" National Society of Black Engineers; Science and Technology Programs, New York State Department of Education, and; Women in Engineering Program (WEP), Pennsylvania State University.

Collectively, the 2003 awards recognize exemplary mentoring programs nationwide, from New York to Florida, and westward from Pennsylvania to California. Four of the eight institutional awards were to organizations in or around Washington, D.C.

For more information on the presidential mentoring awards program, see: http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/HRD/paesmem.asp

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John H. Marburger, III, presented CRA-W Co-Chair Dr. Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech, College of Computing) and CRA-W representative Dr. Jan Cuny (University of Oregon, Computer Science Department) with the citation at a noon ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. CRA-W was one of just eight institutional winners of the annual award, given to those organizations identified as "exemplars" and leaders in the national effort to more fully develop the Nation's human resources in science, mathematics and engineering.

The award cites CRA-W's work providing "hands-on research experiences, mentoring, role models and information exchange to women pursuing careers in [the] field." CRA-W programs seek to increase the number of women involved in computer science and engineering, increase the degree of success they experience, and provide a forum for addressing problems that often fall disproportionately within women's domain.

In a message from the President read by Marburger at the ceremony, Bush noted that new technology was redefining the American workplace and that, "in order to stay on the leading edge we must insure the participation of people from diverse backgrounds and experiences."

"The programs recognized today will serve as role models [in that process]," the President's message said. "I'm incredibly pleased that the long-term work of CRA-W has received this recognition," Harrold said. "CRA-W's success is owed to a long progression of women in computing who gave – and give – of their time and effort to share their knowledge and experiences with the next generation. As the President noted, the country will be well-served by continuing to increase the participation of underrepresented groups."

"The problem is particularly acute in computing," Cuny said. "Five of the 10 fastest growing occupations in the next decade will be computer related, but women make up less than a third of the IT workforce and an even smaller percentage of the academic pipeline. This underrepresentation represents a loss of talent and creativity that we will need shaping the future role of technology in society."

In addition to the Presidential Citation, the award also includes $10,000 to be used by CRA-W to further its efforts. In addition to the eight institutional awards, the President also named nine individual awards for 2004.

The Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels. The current CRA-W co-chairs are Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech) and Carla Ellis (Duke University).

More Information:
CRA Website
PAESMEM program

CRA-W Co-Chairs 2003-2006

• Mary Jean Harrold, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Carla Ellis, Duke University

Current Members

• Fran Allen, IBM Fellow Emerita
• Nancy Amato, Texas A&M University
• Carla Brodley, Purdue University
• Sheila Castañeda, Clarke College
• Lori A. Clarke, University of Massachusetts
• Anne Condon, University of British Columbia
• Jan Cuny, University of Oregon
• Faith E. Fich, University of Toronto
• Kathleen Fisher, AT&T Labs Research
• Joan Francioni, Winona State University
• Jessica Hodgins, Carnegie Mellon University
• Mary Jane Irwin, Penn State University
• Leah Jamieson, Purdue University
• Susan Landau, Sun Microsystems Laboratories
• Nancy G. Leveson, MIT
• Renée J. Miller, University of Toronto
• Joann Ordille, Avaya Labs
• Lori Pollock, University of Delaware
• Ann Redelfs, San Diego Supercomputer Center
• Mary Lou Soffa, University of Pittsburgh
• Telle Whitney, Institute for Women in Technology

Atlanta (May 13, 2004) - President George W. Bush awarded the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) the 2003 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) for "significant achievements in mentoring women across educational levels."

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John H. Marburger, III, presented CRA-W Co-Chair Dr. Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech, College of Computing) and CRA-W representative Dr. Jan Cuny (University of Oregon, Computer Science Department) with the citation at a noon ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. CRA-W was one of just eight institutional winners of the annual award, given to those organizations identified as "exemplars" and leaders in the national effort to more fully develop the Nation's human resources in science, mathematics and engineering.

The award cites CRA-W's work providing "hands-on research experiences, mentoring, role models and information exchange to women pursuing careers in [the] field." CRA-W programs seek to increase the number of women involved in computer science and engineering, increase the degree of success they experience, and provide a forum for addressing problems that often fall disproportionately within women's domain.

In a message from the President read by Marburger at the ceremony, Bush noted that new technology was redefining the American workplace and that, "in order to stay on the leading edge we must insure the participation of people from diverse backgrounds and experiences."

"The programs recognized today will serve as role models [in that process]," the President's message said. "I'm incredibly pleased that the long-term work of CRA-W has received this recognition," Harrold said. "CRA-W's success is owed to a long progression of women in computing who gave – and give – of their time and effort to share their knowledge and experiences with the next generation. As the President noted, the country will be well-served by continuing to increase the participation of underrepresented groups."

"The problem is particularly acute in computing," Cuny said. "Five of the 10 fastest growing occupations in the next decade will be computer related, but women make up less than a third of the IT workforce and an even smaller percentage of the academic pipeline. This underrepresentation represents a loss of talent and creativity that we will need shaping the future role of technology in society."

In addition to the Presidential Citation, the award also includes $10,000 to be used by CRA-W to further its efforts. In addition to the eight institutional awards, the President also named nine individual awards for 2004.

Photo (left to right): Dr. Mary Jean Harrold, Georgia Tech (Co-Chair of CRA-W); Dr. Jan Cuny, University of Oregon (former Chair of CRA-W), Dr. John Marburger, Director OSTP, Dr. Maria Klawe, Dean of Engineering, Princeton University (co-founder of CRA-W and current President of the Association for Computing Machinery), Peter Freeman, National Science Foundation (NSF) assistant director of the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE).

More information about the PAESMEM program can be found at: http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/HRD/paesmem.asp

The Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels. The current CRA-W co-chairs are Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech) and Carla Ellis (Duke University). For more information: http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw/aboutCraw.html

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is an association of more than 200 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies. For more information: http://www.cra.org

CRA-W Co-Chairs 2003-2006
Mary Jean Harrold, Georgia Institute of Technology
Carla Ellis, Duke University

Current Members:
Fran Allen, IBM Fellow Emerita
Nancy Amato, Texas A&M University
Carla Brodley, Purdue University
Sheila Castañeda, Clarke College
Lori A. Clarke, University of Massachusetts
Anne Condon, University of British Columbia
Jan Cuny, University of Oregon
Faith E. Fich, University of Toronto
Kathleen Fisher, AT&T Labs Research
Joan Francioni, Winona State University
Jessica Hodgins, Carnegie Mellon University
Mary Jane Irwin, Penn State University
Leah Jamieson, Purdue University
Susan Landau, Sun Microsystems Laboratories
Nancy G. Leveson, MIT
Renée J. Miller, University of Toronto
Joann Ordille, Avaya Labs
Lori Pollock, University of Delaware
Ann Redelfs, San Diego Supercomputer Center
Mary Lou Soffa, University of Pittsburgh
Telle Whitney, Institute for Women in Technology

Ten additional university centers, including Kennesaw State University’s Center for Information Security Education and Awareness, were added to the fraternity, bringing the total number of such centers to 59 in 27 states.

CoC undergraduate honored with an award from the Computing Research Association.

College of Computing undergraduate, Leo Singleton, has been selected for Honorable Mention in the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate Award for 2005.

Nancy Nersessian, professor and director of the Cognitive Science Program at the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, has been awarded a year-long fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for academic year 2005-06.

Nersessian’s research focuses on human creativity in science and engineering. A major theme of this research is the model-based reasoning practices through which scientists created novel understandings of nature. She has investigated these practices in historical cases of conceptual change in physics and in ethnographic studies of problem solving in interdisciplinary bio-engineering laboratories (PI, Wendy Newsletter, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Co - PI: "Laboratory Learning: Model-Based Reasoning in Research and Instructional Laboratories," 2004 - 2007 REC0411825, and "Biomedical Engineering Thinking and Learning: The Challenge of Integrating Systems and Analogical Thinking," 2001 - 2004 REC0106773). The award will assist her theoretical work on an integrative account of the complex cognitive and cultural systems which give rise to the physical and computational models researchers construct to simulate biological phenomena in problem solving and in learning.

In addition, Nersessian is currently at work on a book, Creating Concepts: Model-based reasoning in conceptual change, to be published by MIT Press.

Upon receiving the honor, Nersessian said "I am pleased and honored to have the Endowment recognize my contributions as important to the humanities. Although as a interdisciplinary cognitive scientist my research focuses on science and engineering, I strongly believe, based on years of research, that creativity in the humanities, arts, and sciences forms but one spectrum, and this is most visible in the kinds of modeling practices with which I am concerned. The award will enable me to have a sustained period of reflection and writing about the interplay of cognition and culture in these."

This year’s NEH fellowship program is very competitive. Nersessian was among 193 recipients from a pool of 1,470 fellowship applications this year, a success rate of 13 percent. Created in 1965, the National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent grant-making agency of the US government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities. Proposals are evaluated by a panel of experts outside of NEH and are then submitted to the National Council on the Humanities. The council then makes recommendations to the NEH chairman, who has the final authority over which proposals receive the grant.

Nersessian has an A.B. in Physics and Philosophy from Boston University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Philosophy. She is author of numerous publications, and has been appointed jointly at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy and the College of Computing since 1993. She has been a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, a Senior Fellow of the Pittsburgh Center for the Philosophy of Science, a Senior Fellow of the Dibner Institute at MIT and has taught at several institutions, including the Technical University of Twente, the Netherlands and Princeton University. In 2003-4 she was Chair of the Cognitive Science Society.

"Computation has become the 'third mode' of science and engineering, taking its place alongside theory and experimentation," says Rich DeMillo, College of Computing dean. "Our vision in the College is to explore and create the future of computing, so forming this division is just the first step in enabling Georgia Tech to be a leader on an international scale."

Modeled after the college's renowned Interface Computing (ICD) and Core Computing (CCD) divisions, CoC carved out a separate academic division around Computational Science and Engineering in order to create a specific identity and provide a certain level of autonomy essential for its success. While other competing universities or national laboratories have typically built high-performance computing research centers, CoC sought to establish an academic unit for education and research in order to provide a suitable "home" for graduate students and tenured faculty in this field.

Adhering to the visions of Georgia Tech Provost Jean-Lou Chameau and CoC Dean Rich DeMillo, the CSED was developed to enhance the university's strength in the computational and high-performance computing areas. Stepping into the CSED's leadership position is Richard Fujimoto, a Professor in the College of Computing. "As an internationally recognized expert in simulation technology, Richard Fujimoto is a natural leader for the Computational Science and Engineering Division" says CoC Professor Dick Lipton, who steered an internal task force and external executive search firm in identifying leaders in computational science to fill faculty positions in the new division. In addition to Fujimoto, several new and exceptional faculty members were brought on board.

As division chair, Fujimoto is charged with shaping and implementing the vision of CSED and leveraging Georgia Tech's investments to realize tangible impacts both on campus and in the broader community. Two of the key areas where Fujimoto anticipates focusing his efforts include modeling and simulation, and high performance computing. "For example, the Department of Defense has been promoting the establishment of modeling and simulation as its own discipline for many years," says Fujimoto. "This is one area where I think our efforts will be well received."

The division also represents a concrete step by the College of Computing to help bridge the gap between traditional Computer Science work that is typically generic (independent of the application domain), and work that is done in the context of a specific engineering or scientific discipline. By bridging this gap, the Computational Science and Engineering Division (CSED) will foster interdisciplinary activities on and off campus. "In keeping with our overall mission to foster innovative and interdisciplinary computing research and education, the College of Computing plans to build the CSED on multiple fronts, including the development of new educational programs, research thrusts and enhanced collaborations both within Georgia Tech as well as with key external strategic partners," stated Fujimoto.

About the College of Computing

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country with 68 academic faculty and 39 research faculty. The College strives to provide high quality instruction and to integrate computing knowledge into other academic disciplines as well as aspects of daily life. Over 1,500 students are enrolled in the college, including approximately 1,100 undergraduates and 481 graduate students, some 273 of which are Ph.D. students. The College is ranked 9th overall at the doctoral level and houses several interdisciplinary research centers including the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU), Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS), and the Modeling & Simulation Research and Education Center (MSREC).

For more information, contact:
Joy Weaks, 406-544-5517
College of Computing
joyweaks@cc.gatech.edu
www.cc.gatech.edu

The IBM PhD Fellowship Program is intended to honor exceptional PhD students in disciplines of mutual interest, as well as emerging technical fields such as autonomic computing, nanotechnology, Grid computing, e-business on demand, and the fertile intersections of biology, computation and economics. IBM Ph.D. Fellows are awarded

tuition, fees, an IBM thinkpad, and a stipend of $17,500 (US) for one nine-month academic year. Recipients also receive an internship designed to strengthen and broaden their technical experience and contacts. Fellows are selected based on "their overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which their technical interests align with those of IBM, and their academic progress to-date as evidenced by publications and endorsements from their faculty advisor and department head."

Singh was nominated by his advisor Ling Liu, associate professor of computing at Georgia Tech and then endorsed by Professor Kishore Ramachandran, Core Computing Division Chair at Tech’s College of Computing.

Aameek Singh’s dissertation research focuses on security and privacy aspects of large scale decentralized storage systems. Last summer, Singh had the opportunity to work with Dr Kaladhar Voruganti, Sandeep Gopisetty and Norm Pass of the Storage Systems Department at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. During this IBM internship, Singh architected a resource planner for enterprise storage area network file systems. He also helped design a framework for automated compliance-checking in large enterprises, utilizing the research experience gained from his PhD research at Georgia Tech. "Enterprises have to continuously ensure that their storage solutions do not violate any laws like those required by medical privacy acts. Our framework automated the whole process, and a patent application is being filed with the U.S. Patents Office regarding this work." This internship experience not only helped Singh to expand his research agenda in wide area storage systems but also expedited his research results in this area.

"The internships at IBM have been a great experience because it gives me the opportunity to work on large real-world projects," Singh said. "The IBM PhD fellowship award will provide an opportunity for me to be involved with IBM researchers and engineers, to better understand the real world problems, and to apply my research to solving practical problems."

At Georgia Tech, Singh is currently working on solutions regarding the issue of data privacy in multi-user operating systems. "In this work, we will show that present access control mechanisms fall short of meeting user expectations of data privacy and can lead to information being leaked to other users."

Singh is currently a member of the Distributed Data Intensive Systems research group at the College of Computing, a program directed by his advisor Dr. Ling Liu. Singh and the DiSL research group work on various aspects of distributed data intensive systems, ranging from decentralized overlay networks, exemplified by peer to peer computing and grid computing, to mobile information management systems, sensor network systems, and enterprise computing technology. The research at DiSL is being supported in part by NSF, DoE, DARPA, IBM, and HP and the center for Experimental Computer Systems Research (CERCS) at Georgia Tech.

For more information, contact:
Joy Weaks, Media Relations
404-544-5517
joyweaks@cc.gatech.edu

In Shanghai, seventy-eight teams of three students each will be challenged to solve a series of complex, real-world programming problems" equal to a semester’s worth of computer programming curriculum "under a grueling five-hour deadline. The Contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. The team that solves the most problems correctly, in the least amount of time, emerges as the international champion, earning scholarships, IBM prizes, and bragging rights to the world’s smartest "trophy."

This year, IBM will introduce these programmers to POWER parallel computing technologies during a separate challenge prior to the World Finals competition. Teams will need to create a parallel application and run it on an IBM POWER-based eServer Blue Gene Supercomputer, IBM’s "rock star of Supercomputers. "Known for their enormous speed, memory, storage capacity and number crunching capabilities, IBM POWER-based parallel supercomputers have been used to solve some of the most difficult problems in physics, engineering, biology, geology and the environment. IBM’s sponsorship is part of a company-wide effort to advance the next generation of information technology talent.

The Contest’s regional competitions this year drew over 3,150 teams from 71 countries on six continents. Georgia Tech’s Computing team not only emerged as a finalist earning a coveted spot on the World Finals roster, but Charlie, Topraj, and Chris will also attempt to bring the world champion trophy home to the U.S. for the first time since 1997. So, as the spring semester gets underway, don’t forget about your campus’ computer programming superstars! They’ll be sharpening their programming skills and packing their good luck charms as they head for Shanghai to compete in the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.

Stay tuned for World Finals results or get the latest updates from http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals/.

About the Georgia Tech ACM Student Chapter

Founded in 1947, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) promotes and increases knowledge of science, design, development, construction, languages and applications of modern computing. The ACM is the society for computing professionals. The Georgia Tech Student Chapter (GTACM) is the primary student organization for computer science majors. Activities include organized corporate and faculty presentations and other events, which benefit both undergraduate and graduate students. GTACM also provides an avenue for students to develop corporate leadership skills.

About ACM

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global membership of 75,000 by delivering cutting edge technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM hosts the computing industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature. With its journals and magazines, special interest groups, conferences, workshops, electronic forums and Career Resource Centre, ACM is a primary resource to the information technology field. For more information, see www.acm.org.

For more information, contact:
Joy Weaks, 404-385-2881
College of Computing
joyweaks@cc.gatech.edu

ATLANTA, November 15, 2005 – The Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), a national leader in information security research and education, today hosted the Wireless Security Summit, which examined the security challenges associated with one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas in the technology industry today – wireless voice and data networks. Executives from major corporations with a stake in wireless technology, including AirDefense, BellSouth [NYSE: BLS], Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Cingular Wireless, InterContinental Hotels Group [LON: IHG, NYSE: IHG (ADRs)], Internet Security Systems [NASDAQ: ISSX] and RF Micro Devices [NASDAQ: RFMD], provided Summit attendees with a breakdown of security risks and solutions from the perspective of the end user, service provider, security leader and wireless component developer.

“Wireless technology is exploding, with enterprises and consumers quickly adopting new services in order to realize the significant social and economic benefits that come with wireless voice and data networks,” said Mustaque Ahamad , director of GTISC. “At the Wireless Security Summit, GTISC has further educated the technology and business communities about the security issues associated with this technology and proposed solutions to these potential challenges . ”

More than 200 corporate executives, industry leaders and technologists from across the country attended the Wireless Security Summit, which was keynoted by Mitch Gelman, vice president and executive producer of CNN.com. Mr. Gelman's keynote address focused on current growth and future possibilities of the wireless market, as well as the need for increased security measures to protect the information that flows over wireless voice and data networks.

“As the usage of wireless and mobile technologies becomes more and more ingrained into everyday life, security still remains as a large obstacle for further adoption,” said Mr. Gelman. “In order for wireless services to thrive, there cannot be a security cost associated with improved connectivity. I commend GTISC and the College of Computing at Georgia Tech for creating a forum for discussing and developing usable solutions to security risks that challenge the integrity of wireless and mobile technologies.”

Following Mr. Gelman's address, representatives from AirDefense, Cingular Wireless, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, InterContinental Hotels Group, Internet Security Systems, RFMD and Georgia Tech participated in a panel about wireless security. Moderated by Steve Zimba, the Director of Voice Strategy at BellSouth, the panelists debated how security will impact the constant availability associated with wireless voice and data networks and whether security threats such as identity theft will proliferate due to less secure wireless networks and “hotspots.”

“As stakeholders in the wireless industry, BellSouth and the other organizations represented at the Wireless Security Summit have a responsibility to monitor security risks as new and more technically-complex wireless devices and networks develop,” said Mr. Zimba. “Providing our customers with convenient, affordable and safe means of communications is BellSouth's top priority, and we are looking forward to working with GTISC and other industry participants to heighten security awareness among consumer and business end users and proactively promote viable solutions.”

For more information about the Wireless Security Summit and GTISC, please visit http://www.gtisc.gatech.edu/ .

About Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC)

The Georgia Tech Information Security Center , a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, is an interdisciplinary center involving faculty from the College of Computing , School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and the School of Public Policy.

For more information, contact:
Brendan Streich
GCI Group
404-870-6796
bstreich@gcigroup.com

The author of over 100 articles and books, DeMillo's research has spanned several fundamental areas of computer science and includes innovation in computer security, software engineering and mathematics. His present research interests focus on information security and nanotechnology, and he is active in many aspects of the IT industry. DeMillo serves on several technology company advisory boards and panels, and he also serves on the board of directors for RSA Security.

"This is a well deserved recognition,” says Dr. Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the journal Science. The rank of fellow is the highest awarded by the AAAS, bestowed upon a small fraction of members by their peers, because of their efforts to advance science or foster applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. DeMillo will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, February 19 at the 2005 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country and provides high quality instruction that integrates computing knowledge into other academic disciplines, as well as aspects of daily life. The College of Computing is ranked 9th overall at the doctoral level, and houses several interdisciplinary research centers including the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU), Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS), and the Modeling & Simulation Research and Education Center (MSREC).

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was founded in 1848, and serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. As publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org), AAAS has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

CoC Professor Mary Jean Harrold presented the initiatives of ADVANCE, an NSF funded program led by Dr. Harrold with the goal of increasing the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through the increased representation and advancement of women in academic scientific and engineering careers. Dr. Harrold also led a breakout session where other faculty came to discuss how they might adopt the kind of mentoring program that the College of Computing has started.

Professor Mark Guzdial presented CoC's Computational Media degree in a panel on curricular changes that draw women into computing. The Deputy Director of the NSF, Dr. Kathie Olsen, praised Computational Media during her reception talk.

Program Brochure
http://www.ncwit.org/pdf/Practices_Program.pdf

Event Blog
http://www.ncwit.org/connect.blog.php?source=calendar&action=display&editorial_id=68

Khot earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2003 under his advisor Professor Sanjeev Arora. He stayed at Princeton for another year as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study before joining the Theory Group at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing.

FOCS is a premier theory conference, and is considered one of the most important venues for presenting new results in theoretical computer sciences. The annual FOCS conference is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and is organized by what is now called the IEEE Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (TC-MFCS). FOCS began in 1960 as a "Symposium on Switching Circuit Theory and Logic Design" (SCT&LD), changed its name in 1966 to the "Symposium on Switching and Automata Theory" (SWAT), and assumed its current name in 1975.

The FOCS program committee may choose up to three papers as Best Papers each year. The main criterion for giving the award is: introduction of a strong new technique, solution of a long-standing open problem, introduction and solution of an interesting and important new problem. The program committee must also have substantial confidence in the accuracy of the paper. Each author on each of the selected Best Papers receives a certificate or plaque with the name of the award, the name of the paper, and the names of the authors of the paper. The other Best Paper Award at FOCS 2004 was “Cryptography in NC^0” by authors Benny Applebaum, Yuval Ishai, and Eyal Kushilevitz.

The Georgia Tech College of Computing houses one of the largest computer science programs in the country and provides high quality instruction that integrates computing knowledge into other academic disciplines, as well as aspects of daily life. The College of Computing is ranked 9th overall at the doctoral level, and houses several interdisciplinary research centers including the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU), Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS), and the Modeling & Simulation Research and Education Center (MSREC).

Over the next three months, regional competitions across the globe are expected to draw more than 3,000 teams from over 70 countries on 6 continents. Of these, 75 teams will compete at the World Finals, April 3-7, 2005, in Shanghai, China, hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The ACM-ICPC aims to develop the next generation of information technology talent, and to ensure that the computer sciences education pipeline remains full.

Georgia Tech sent three, three-man teams to the South Eastern Regionals, and placed 1st, 9th, and 21st out of 64 teams. The top Georgia Tech team included Charlie Reiss, Topraj Gurung, and Chris Sidi. The other six students representing Tech were: Justin Altman, Garry Boyer, James Robinson, Nick Clift, Will Rorabaugh, and Nirmal Thakker. Two months prior to the competition, Georgia Tech students dedicated their Sundays to seven-hour practices with volunteer coach David Van Brackle.

“This is the world's premier university competition in the computing sciences and engineering,” said Dr. Bill Poucher, ICPC Executive Director.” The world’s universities have partnered with IBM and ACM to offer the best and brightest students the opportunity to challenge themselves to achieve far beyond classroom expectations so that they can build the cutting edge technology of tomorrow.” The contest challenges students, working in three-person teams, to rely on their programming skills and creativity during a five-hour battle of logic, strategy, and mental endurance. Students solve complex problems using both traditional and new software development tools.

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets are grateful for the support of their corporate sponsors: Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, King Industrial Realty, ISX, and Vocalocity, as well as their ACM sponsors: Andrew Harp, Dan Colestock, and Harrison Caudill.

About the Georgia Tech ACM Student Chapter

Founded in 1947, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) promotes and increases knowledge of science, design, development, construction, languages and applications of modern computing. The ACM is the society for computing professionals. The Georgia Tech Student Chapter (GTACM) is the primary student organization for computer science majors. Activities include organized corporate and faculty presentations and other events, which benefit both undergraduate and graduate students. GTACM also provides an avenue for students to develop corporate leadership skills.

About ACM

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global membership of 75,000 by delivering cutting edge technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM hosts the computing industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature. With its journals and magazines, special interest groups, conferences, workshops, electronic forums and Career Resource Centre, ACM is a primary resource to the information technology field. For more information, see <a xhref="http://www.acm.org">www.acm.org</a>.

Atlanta (January 19, 2005) — With spam now comprising two-thirds of all e-mail traffic around the world and the increasing threat of spyware and phishing, information security becomes more important to the global economy and to individual users every day. To examine these issues more closely, the Georgia Tech Information Security Center held its first GTISC Security Summit on Tuesday, January 18 at the Global Learning & Conference Center on the Georgia Tech campus.

Experts from the Federal Trade Commission and leading security and Internet organizations including CipherTrust, EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), Internet Security Systems (Nasdaq: ISSX), RSA Security (Nasdaq: RSAS) and the Georgia Tech College of Computing gathered to discuss current security issues. The Summit also showcased Atlanta’s increasingly important role as a center of the security industry.

Orson Swindle, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, gave the keynote address entitled, “The Road to Regulation: Do You Really Want to Go There?” Swindle was sworn in as a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission in 1997, and he was appointed in 2001 as head of the U.S. Delegation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Experts Group to review the 1992 OECD Guidelines for the Security of Information Systems.

Following Swindle’s keynote address, a panel discussion by leading security experts outlined the latest security issues facing the industry from their different perspectives as Internet service providers, information security firms, researchers and educators.

Panelists included:
    • Garry Betty, president and chief executive officer, EarthLink (http://www.earthlink.net)
    • Richard DeMillo, the John P. Imlay dean and distinguished professor of computing, Georgia Tech (http://www.coc.gatech.edu)
    • Paul Judge, chief technology officer, CipherTrust (http://www.ciphertrust.com)
    • Arthur W. Coviello, Jr., president and chief executive officer, RSA Security
    (http://www.rsasecurity.com)
    • Christopher Rouland, chief technology officer, Internet Security Systems (http://www.iss.net)

The panel was moderated by Doug Isenberg, editor and publisher, GigaLaw.com and attorney practicing technology and Internet legal issues with Needle & Rosenberg, P.C.

More details about the Security Summit and participants are available at http://gtisc.gatech.edu.

About GTISC
The Georgia Tech Information Security Center, a National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education, conducts interdisciplinary research and development on all aspects of information security, including systems-vulnerability assessment, usable security, and public and organizational security policies. GTISC’s three-pronged mission includes: conducting research that will lay the foundations for a discipline of information security and that contributes to the development and testing of systems, devices, strategies, policies, practical concepts, and techniques; educating and training information security professionals through degree and continuing-education programs, and to insure that information security awareness is instilled in all Georgia Tech students; and assisting industry, non-profit organizations, government, and individuals to solve information security problems through outreach programs and support of groups devoted to information security.

The interdisciplinary center is housed in the College of Computing and involves faculty from Computing, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and the School of Public Policy.

Related Link: Georgia Tech Information Security Center

For more information, contact:
Joy Weaks, 404-932-1254
College of Computing
joyweaks@cc.gatech.edu

Mr. Alton P. ("Pete") Jensen, Professor Emeritus of Georgia Tech's College of Computing, died peacefully at home on Sunday, February 6, 2005, at age 79.

Professor Jensen was an Army veteran of World War II and served with companies I and L of the 94th Infantry Division. His military service and his long career at Georgia Tech were the proudest and most satisfying times of his life.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Peter Roosevelt Jensen and Emma Brown Jensen; his brother, James Russell Jensen; and his first wife, Jackie Epperson Jensen. He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Judith Bourgeois Jensen; his son, Allen P. Jensen and wife Sara; his daughter, Jean Jensen Terrell; and grandson, Lance Clinton Terrell; and his brothers, Edward Norman Jensen of Whitesburg, Georgia, and Joseph John Jensen of Plainfield, Illinois, as well as numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be at A. S. Turner & Sons Tuesday, February 8th 4-6 pm, followed by a reception at the Jensen family home 6-8 pm. Graveside services will be conducted at the Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Milledgeville, Georgia, on Wednesday, February 9th at 11 am. A memorial service will be announced at some future date.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the College of Computing at Georgia Tech.

For more information, contact:
Mary Alice Isele
Director of Development
isele@cc.gatech.edu
404-894-8383

“I have spent my career trying to raise national awareness of information security issues through my various corporate and public policy positions,” said Schmidt. “By joining the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, one of our nation's most progressive and innovative academic environments for computing, I can now provide my vision and insight to those research and educational initiatives that will drive the future development of cyber security solutions for the everyday computer user.”

Schmidt's distinguished career as an information security advocate includes leadership positions with both public and private sector organizations. He has served on the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, was an augmented member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and held executive positions with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Information Security Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB). Schmidt also served as vice president and chief security strategist for eBay and chief security officer for Microsoft Corporation, forming and directing the computer giant's Trustworthy Computer Security Strategies Group.

“The College of Computing continuously seeks out industry experts and visionaries such as Howard Schmidt to take our faculty and students to greater heights in computing research,” said Richard A. DeMillo, dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. “We are thrilled to be able to tap into Howard's expertise and apply it to the College of Computing's academic and research programs surrounding cyber security.”

GTISC, a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, believes that research and education form the basis for developing effective solutions to safeguard personal digital information against current cyber security threats such as phishing, spoofing and identity. GTISC addresses these threats using an innovative and unique approach of “usable security” – the integration of usability and security research with the goal of empowering everyday users to better protect themselves and take charge of their online security and privacy.

About the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
The College of Computing at Georgia Tech is a national leader in the research and creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 12 th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College's unconventional approach to education is pioneering the new era of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit www.cc.gatech.edu.

About Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC)
The Georgia Tech Information Security Center, a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, is an interdisciplinary center involving faculty from the College of Computing, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Public Policy.

February 15, 2005 - Atlanta, GA - The Toyota USA Foundation today announced that the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) at Georgia Tech has been named the recipient of a $130,000 grant to support the Institute for Computing Education (ICE@Tech) Program. The grant is one of seven awards totaling over $1 million, announced in December by the Toyota USA Foundation.

ICE@ Tech, a year-round secondary education teacher training initiative, is designed to strengthen the technology skills of current and future computer science teachers, resulting in Advanced Placement (AP) computer science courses being offered in Georgia high schools. The program is delivered by the College of Computing (CoC) at Georgia Tech. “We are delighted to team up with Georgia Tech in this important secondary education initiative,” said Hideaki “Harry” Otaka, Chairman of the Toyota USA Foundation, in announcing the award. “Information technology is one of the driving forces in the U.S. economy, and it is vital that students have the opportunity to pursue studies in the field of computer science while in high school.”

“Recently there has been a downward trend in students electing to pursue careers in this field. We are pleased to join the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Tech in a partnership to reverse this situation,” Otaka added. The ICE@Tech Program, launched in June 2004 by CEISMC, together with the CoC at Georgia Tech, utilizes an innovative media competition curriculum developed by CoC faculty that has already proven successful with women and minorities. It is anticipated that the ICE@Tech Program will increase the number of public high schools in Georgia that offer AP Computer Science from fewer than 50 percent to all 376 public high schools in the state within the coming decade.

Toyota USA Foundation, Georgia Tech

Upon receiving notification of the award, CEISMC’s Director, Paul Ohme, said, “Georgia Tech is very pleased to receive support from the Toyota USA Foundation. This will allow us to enhance our efforts with the Georgia State Department of Education to increase the effectiveness of secondary teachers who provide instruction in the field of computer science.” In addition to Georgia Tech, other recipients of the Toyota USA Foundation awards are the Zoological Society of San Diego, San Diego, CA; Rocking the Boat, Inc., Bronx, NY; the University of Montana Foundation, Missoula, MT; the Saint Louis Science Center, St. Louis, MO; Trees for Tomorrow Natural Resources Specialty School, Eagle River, WI and National 4-H Council, Chevy Chase, MD.

The Toyota USA Foundation is a $40 million charitable endowment created to support education programs serving kindergarten through 12th grade students and their teachers in the United States. The Foundation’s emphasis is on supporting mathematics and science. For additional information about the Toyota USA Foundation, visit www.toyota.com/foundation.

Contact:
Mira Sleilati
Toyota Motor North America, Inc.
(212) 715-7435
mira_sleilati@tma.toyota.com

The four-year contract will support research in Game AI. This funding is part of a $25 million project on Generalized Integrated Learning Architectures (GILA), led by Lockheed Martin and involving several leading universities.

The 2005-2006 Undergraduate Awards included:

• Outstanding Freshman - Jeffrey David Starker II
• Outstanding Sophomore - Joshua Isaac Silver
• Outstanding Junior - Kathy Pham
• Outstanding Undergraduate - Robert Ian Fitzpatrick
• Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant - Blake Patrick O’Hare
• Outstanding Undergraduate Research Assistant - Andrew Russell Guillory
• The Dave & Carrie Armento Scholarship - Joseph Chester Hardy
  Established to award an African-American computer science major who is a Georgia resident.
• The Bierne M. Prager Scholarship - James Richard Bailey
  Established to award an undergraduate student from Shelby County, Tennessee.

*Fifty-nine CoC undergraduate students qualify to graduate with honors this spring.

The 2005-2006 Graduate Awards included:

• Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant - Ryan Riegel
• Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant - Xiaotong Zhuang
• The Donald V. Jackson Fellowship - Mitchell Halpin
  This Fellowship supports the master’s program and is awarded to a well-rounded computer science student who best embodies values of academic excellence and leadership.
• The Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship - Summer Adams
  This Fellowship supports the master’s program and is awarded to a well-rounded student who best embodies values of academic excellence and leadership.

The 2005-2006 Research Awards included:

• Outstanding Junior Faculty Research - Jun (Jim) Xu
• Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award - Dana Randall and Gregory Abowd
• The Raytheon Faculty Fellowship - Subhash Khot
  This Fellowship is an annual $20,000 seed grant designed to foster and encourage collaborative activities among CoC faculty members and to further promote a sense of community within the college.

The 2005-2006 Faculty Awards included:

• William A. “Gus” Baird Faculty Teaching Award - Charles Isbell
  This award is to honor a faculty member who is recognized by his or her peers for excellence in teaching.

• The Peter A. Freeman Faculty Award – Richard Fujimoto
  This award is presented annually to a member of the faculty who has demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit for which the founding Dean, Peter A. Freeman, was known.

• The Dean’s Award – Mark Guzdial, Charles Isbell, and Tom Pilsch
  This award was given for their dedication and implementation of the Threads™ Program, CoC’s revolutionary approach to undergraduate education.

• Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award – Mostafa Ammar
  This award is presented by the Georgia Institute of Technology to recognize the achievements of a faculty member’s doctoral students who completed all degree requirements from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2005.

The 2005-2006 Staff Awards included:

• Outstanding Support and Service - LerVerne Davis (Accountant III), Ylonda Moore (Administrative Coordinator), and Becky Wilson (Academic Advisor I).

The 2005-2006 Corporate Awards included:

The College of Computing also recognized this year’s generous supporters which include:

The 2005-2006 Industrial Partner’s Association

AFLAC
Armedia, LLC
Auto Trader
Care Centric
Cisco Systems
Cox Interactive Media
Federated Department Stores, Inc.
Google
Harris Corporation
Intel Corporation
Internet Security Systems
Lockheed Martin
LSI Logic
Manheim Interactive
Mercury
Microsoft
Orasi
Patient Care Technologies, Inc.
Pixar
SAIC
SPI Dynamics
TCS America
Telcordia Technologies