Computer Science eNewsletter
July 2015
In This Issue
- Vail Earns Best Paper Award
- CSC Department Welcomes New Faculty
- Top 10 Online Degree Ranking!
- New Graduate Career Services Director & Suite
- NC State Engineering Summer Camp for the Visually Impaired
- NCSU Grad Creates New Ride-sharing Service for Students
- Visitor Parking Changes
- Researchers Boost Wireless Power Transfer
- Stones Satisfy ‘The Wolfpacks’
- Dining Wins Innovator Award
- Departmental Gifts & Research
- CSC Wolf Bytes
- Follow the Department on Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter!
- Personalized Job Search Agent in ePack
Vail Earns Best Paper Award
Congratulations to PhD student, Alexandria Vail and Drs. Kristy Boyer and James Lester, in the NC State Computer Science department, and Dr. Eric Wiebe, in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math department, for winning the Best Paper Award at the User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2015) conference held at Trinity College Dublin on June 29 – July 3. more
CSC Department Welcomes New Faculty
The NC State University Department of Computer Science is pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty members to our department starting in the fall 2015 semester. Dr. Jessica Staddon will join the department as an associate professor in computer science. Her general area of specialty is privacy. She is currently a research scientist and manager at Google. Dr. Muhammad Shahzad will join the department as an assistant professor in computer science. Shahzad’s general area of specialty is computer networking. During his PhD, Shahzad did two internships at Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, and one at Technicolor Research, Paris, France. more
Top 10 Online Degree Ranking!
NC State University is ranked #8 nationally in OnlineU’s 2015 Top Online Computer Science Degrees. According to the source, the 2015 Top Online Computer Science Degrees include some of the most selective schools in the nation, including Stanford University and Columbia University. All 10 schools are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and have some of the lowest acceptance rates, highest enrollment rates, and highest student entrance exam scores. more
New Graduate Career Services Director & Suite
We are excited to announce that we are in the process of hiring a Director of Graduate Career Services to work closely with industry partners to identify internship and career opportunities, and to serve as development mentor of professional skills for our 700+ CSC graduate students. We are also investing ~$150,000 in the construction of a new CSC Graduate Career Services Suite in EB2 that will contain two high-tech interview rooms (with HD monitors and video capabilities to allow for remote interviews) and a drop-in office for the exclusive use of our industry partners. Of course, ePartners and Super ePartners will have priority access to this new facility. This in no way replaces the services provided by the University's Career Development Center; rather we will work closely with them to supplement their capabilities in a coordinated fashion. We are using premium MS program tuition to provide this enhanced service for our graduate students. We hope to have everything in place as early as this fall. We will be sharing more as the construction progresses.
NC State Engineering Summer Camp for the Visually Impaired
The Engineering Place in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University held its first engineering summer camp for high school students with visual impairments or blindness (VIB) in July. Dr. Jerome P. Lavelle, associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering at NC State, said, “This exciting camp is an excellent example of the college’s commitment to diversity and access.” more
NCSU Grad Creates New Ride-sharing Service for Students
As featured on a WRAL TV5 news story, a North Carolina State University graduate has created a new ride-sharing service—similar to Uber and Lyft—generated toward getting N.C. State students around town and around campus. Co-founder Arjun Aravindan created the new service, Campus Cruizer, last year after earning a computer science degree from NC State. more
Visitor Parking Changes
Effective Wednesday, July 1, visitor parking permits will no longer be sold at Visitor Information Booths on Centennial Campus or Main Campus. NC State Transportation is making this operational change since other visitor parking payment options are in place to accommodate visitor parking. Visitors have the option of using pay lots and pay-by-space parking in locations on both campuses. On Centennial Campus, parking options for guests include the pay lot at Partners Way (credit card in and out), and the pay-by-space locations on the top level of the Poulton Parking Deck and in the Capability Drive lot. Pay-by-space offers visitors the added convenience of paying for parking via smartphone plus the ability to extend parking time. Payment can be made by credit card or Paypal (0.32 convenience fee). Transportation staff at the visitor booths will continue to provide parking information to campus visitors. Please note that the Centennial Campus info booth is only staffed until 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Researchers Boost Wireless Power Transfer
Research from NC State University and Carnegie Mellon University shows that passing wireless power transfer through a magnetic resonance field enhancer – which can be as simple as a copper loop – can boost the transfer efficiency by at least 100 percent as compared to transferring through air alone. more
Stones Satisfy ‘The Wolfpacks’
Fifty years after they first appeared at what Mick Jagger foggily called “the Reynolds Coliseum,” the Rolling Stones returned to Raleigh for the fourth time on July 1st for a two-hour-plus show at Carter-Finley Stadium. more
Dining Wins Innovator Award
For those of us who frequent the On the Oval on Centennial Campus, this comes as no surprise. Food Management magazine has named NC State’s University Dining as the 2015 College Innovator of the Year in its June issue. The award recognizes the nation’s most forward-thinking college dining service each year. In particular, the magazine lauds the self-operated service’s “commitment to campus community and dining quality.” more
Departmental Gifts & Research
EMC has donated $10,000 in support of the ePartners Program.
Schwab Performance Technologies has donated $10,000 in support of the ePartners Program and the Sr. Design Center.
AirWatch has donated $5,000 in support of the ePartners Program.
Spirent has donated $5,000 in support of the ePartners Program.
MetLife has donated $5,000 in support of the ePartners Program.
Allied Telesis has donated $2,500 in support of the ePartners Program.
Microsoft has awarded Dr. Tiffany Barnes a Microsoft Research Award of $6,500 in support of the “Understanding the use of Minecraft for teaching programming to K12 students”.
CSC Wolf Bytes
It is with mixed emotions that we announce the departure of Ms. Tenille Naumann, our Financial Officer, who will be joining the NC State Department of Statistics as their Business Officer in mid-August. This is a loss for our department, but a tremendous career opportunity for her. Please join us in thanking Tenille for her contributions to the department and in wishing her all the best in her new role.
Please join us in welcoming Mr. Christopher Gurley - new CSC IT Linux administrator. Chris' main responsibilities will be administration and support of core environments: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, LAMP stack, automated server configuration, application testing and deployment. He also will assist with virtualization/cloud computing support. Chris is a 2015 NC State CSC alum!
CSC alum, Stephen Thomas (CSC B.S. ’06, M.S. ’07) was recently appointed Director of Sales Engineering and Business Development for SecurityScorecard. more
Follow the Department on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter!
Alumni, students, faculty, staff, and corporate partners of the NC State Department of Computer Science, interested in networking to foster collaboration, entrepreneurship, partnerships, career development and professional growth are invited to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Personalized Job Search Agent in ePack
If you are a CSC student or recent graduate (within 12 months post-graduation) and would like to receive email notifications when new jobs are posted on ePack matching your profile, you can set up your own customized job search agent to receive just the postings you desire (intern vs. full time, etc). For a short video tutorial on how to create your own personalized job agent, click here.
The Alumni Association has partnered with the University Career Development Center to make ePACK available to NC State alumni. If you are a current Alumni Association member, update your online profile by visiting the Wolfpack Connect (alumni directory) and click on the ‘Update My Info’ tab on the upper right side of the page. Select the ‘Career Connections’ tab and then choose ‘yes’ beside the question, ‘Do you want access to ePACK?’
To access ePACK you must be a member of the Alumni Association and you must be an alumnus/alumnae of NC State. If you are not a member of the Alumni Association, you can join online. Once you have received an email confirming your membership, you will be able to register for access to ePACK.
Questions: Contact Career Services Counselor Catherine Tuttle at catherine_tuttle@ncsu.edu