Computer Science eNewsletter

Prime Mover

Xavier PrimusMeet CSC graduate student, Xavier Primus. This former Parks Scholar and CSC Student Ambassador was accepted as an undergraduate into MIT, Georgetown, George Mason, UVA and Duke...yet he choose NC State. From military brat to service projects to a strong entrepreneurial spirit, find out what makes us (and NC State University) so proud of this young man! more

Senior Design Center's "Posters & Pies" Set for Dec 4th

The public is cordially invited to attend the NC State Department of Computer Science Senior Design Center "Posters & Pies" event on Friday, December 4th, from 10:40 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. in the James B. Hunt Jr. Library Auditorium on NC State’s award-winning Centennial Campus. Each team will give a brief presentation of their Senior Design Project in the Hunt Library Auditorium. After the presentations, pizza and dessert pies will be served, and you can enjoy project demonstrations and poster displays in the Hunt Library Duke Energy Hall. If you plan to attend, please register online at http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/rsvp/posters-pies/, so that we may properly plan for refreshments.more

New Tech Helps Handlers Monitor Health, Well-Being of Guide Dogs

Sean Mealin & SimbaResearchers at NC State University have developed a device that allows people who are blind to monitor their guide dogs, in order to keep tabs on the health and well-being of their canine companions. “Our goal is to let guide dog handlers know when their dogs are stressed or anxious,” says Sean Mealin, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of the paper. “Dogs primarily communicate through their movements and posture, which makes it difficult or impossible for people who are blind to fully understand their dogs’ needs on a moment-to-moment basis,” says Dr. David Roberts, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the new technology. more

Are People Inherently Good or Bad at Learning New Tech? Your Opinion Matters

If you think people are inherently good or bad at learning how to use new technology, odds are good that it’s harder for you to learn how to use new technology. Those are the findings of a recent psychology study from NC State University – and it’s something tech companies may want to consider when testing out new products. more

Research Review Session Planned for December 7th

As the science and technology flagship for the UNC system, NC State University continues to uphold its mission as a land-grant university, serving the state of North Carolina through innovation, research and extension. But as a tech business leader, you might wonder how you would go about partnering with us on research. Navigating the landscape is easier than you might think. Step one is to attend a special CSC Research Review Session on Monday, December 7th, 8AM - 3 PM here in EB2 to learn more about the variety of research opportunities that our faculty are working on. During the day, you will hear 15-minute "elevator pitches" by a variety of computer science faculty on their research in the morning, followed by lunch and an industry research panel and discussion time in the afternoon. To help us plan for the event, we request that you register in advance at http://goo.gl/forms/1pDs7v9nsp. Space is limited to approximately 40, so register early. We hope you can join us.

Geolas to Speak at Fall 2015 Diploma Ceremony

Bob GeolasThe NC State University Computer Science Department will hold its fall diploma ceremony on Thursday, December 17th at 1:00 p.m. in the main sanctuary at Providence Baptist Church, located at 6339 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh (directions). We are honored to have Robert T. “Bob” Geolas, President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina,serve as our keynote speaker. For the benefit of relatives and friends who may not be able to attend the event in person, the event will be available online via live video streaming at http://go.ncsu.edu/csc-diploma. more

Four honored with College’s Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award

The College of Engineering at North Carolina State University bestowed the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award on four deserving graduates during a ceremony on Friday, Oct. 30. more

Researchers Find New Phase of Carbon, Make Diamond at Room Temperature

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air. more

Teaching Math Aloud – and Visually

Dr. Tiffany BarnesThanks to an $800,000 NSF grant, a collaborative multi-disciplinary research effort is focused on exploring inventive ways to teach math. Some 800,000 students in 40 states play ST Math, animated math puzzles that help an avatar, JiJi the penguin, advance through a series of obstacles. The games use illustrations and animations of concepts from counting to fractions to simple algebra. Computer science faculty members Drs. Tiffany Barnes (pictured here) and Collin Lynch will carry out data mining for the study. more

Alumni Invited To Apply For 2016 Nicaragua Service Trip

The Center for Student Leadership, Ethics & Public Services offers exceptional service learning experiences such as their Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trips. For the 2nd year, the ASB Office is offering an ASB Alumni trip next May to Nicaragua. This is an opportunity for alumni to connect and give back. A portion of the trip costs helps to fund students who would not be able to financially afford an opportunity to go. more

Departmental Gifts & Research

LexisNexis has donated $5,000 to the department in support of the Senior Design Center.

Bandwidth has donated $5,000 to the department in support of the ePartners Program.

Red Hat has donated $5,000 to the department in support of the ePartners Program.

Ipreo has donated $2,500 to the department in support of the ePartners Program.

HealthBeMe has donated $1,000 to the department in support of the ePartners Program.

The RTP Chapter of SIM has donated $7,580 to the department in support of the SIM-RTP Scholarship Endowment.

Dr. James Lester, Director of the Center for Educational Informatics and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at NC State, and Dr. Eric Wiebe, Professor of STEM Education at NC State, have been awarded $1.24M by the Concord Consortium via the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award supports their project entitled, “Guiding Understanding via Information from Digital Environments (GUIDE).” This is a collaborative project with NC State and the Concord Consortium, a non-profit educational technology laboratory for science, math and engineering headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts. The total award for the project is approximately $3M. more

Dr. Christopher Healey has been awarded $108,262 by SAS Institute to support his research proposals entitled “Predictive Analytics and Visualization of Narrative Threads for Large Document Collections,” and “Visualizing the Structure of a Deep Convolution Neural Net for Text Understanding.” more

CSC Wolf Bytes

CSC junior & student ambassador, Mark DeMaria provides some insight into the world of low-budget filmmaking! 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