CSC News

Three from Computer Science Win Prestigious NSF CAREER Awards

Congratulations to Drs. John-Paul Ore, assistant professor, Thomas Price, associate professor, and Wujie Wen, associate professor, in the Department of Computer Science at NC State University, on receiving a Faculty Early Career Development award, also known as the CAREER Award, from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award is one of the highest honors given by NSF to young faculty members in science and engineering.

Dr. John-Paul Ore has received $594,739 for his project, “Robust and Lightweight Formal Methods for Mobile Robot System Development.”  His award is effective August 24, 2024 through July 31, 2029. 

Ore’s Research Abstract:  Open-source robot software aims to enable rapid system development but comes with little or no tooling for automated testing and analysis. This work utilizes model checking of behavior trees and abstract type inference of physical units to automatically suggest system tests and to help ensure the absence of certain classes of software defects. This CAREER proposal examines whole system representation and tooling across interdisciplinary boundaries. We aim to substantially reduce the cost and improve the scalability of lightweight formal methods for robotic software systems, thus laying the foundation for the next generation of automated testing and analysis of robotic systems.

Ore’s research interests are broadly in the areas of software engineering, robotics, program analysis, and system testing using high-resolution physical simulators.  His contributions include new software engineering methods that enable dimensional analysis without developer annotations for the Robot Operating System, new open-source tools that implement these methods (https://unl-nimbus-lab.github.io/phys/), open datasets of dimensional inconsistencies found in the wild, and novel techniques in aerial field robotics for environmental monitoring.  His research combines field robotics and software engineering (SE).   Field robotics exposes the shortcomings of our ability to reason about whole systems with different levels of abstraction within realistic environments, and SE increasingly enables new capabilities to develop more dependable safety-critical systems.

Ore received his PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2019.

Dr. Thomas Price has received $644,883 for his project, “Improving Machine Learning Education Through Data-driven Support for Pipeline Design and Implementation.”  His award is effective August 15, 2023 through August 14, 2028. 

Price’s Research Abstract:  Machine learning (ML) is a powerful computing tool for building models from data, which is becoming a vital skill across STEM disciplines. However, ML is a challenging subject, requiring students to construct complex ML "pipelines," often with little one-on-one support from instructors. The goal of this CAREER proposal is to aid students in learning to design and implement ML pipelines through a data-driven tutoring system. To do so, the project will develop novel techniques for evidence-centered, real-time assessment of students' ML knowledge and novel forms of automated support for ML, including design feedback, and adaptive code examples.

Price directs the Help through INTelligent Support (HINTS) Lab, which develops learning environments that automatically support students through AI and data-driven help features. His work has focused on the domain of computing education, where he has developed techniques for automatically generating programming hints and feedback for students in real-time by leveraging student data. He has evaluated the efficacy of innovative programming technologies, including block-based and frame-based programming environments, and has designed intelligent support features that integrate with these technologies.

Price received his MS and PhD degrees from NC State in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

Dr. Wujie Wen has received $600,000 for his project, “Dependable and Secure Machine Learning Acceleration from Untrusted Hardware.”  His award is effective October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2028. 

Wen’s Research Abstract:  Fueled by machine learning (ML) model and hardware advancements, intelligence is transforming every walk of life. For critical applications like autonomous vehicles, ensuring inference dependability is essential. Unfortunately, current hardware cannot provide such a promise. This CAREER project aims to create a new paradigm of safeguarding ML execution against both passive hardware faults and active fault attacks. The novelties lie in the new capability development inside ML processing, and the cross-layer exploration of algorithm, architecture, and hardware security. The broader impacts include yielding practical solutions for ensuring the root of trust of accelerated intelligence services and abundant educational opportunities.

Wen’s current research efforts include efficient, reliable, secure, and privacy-preserving computing, particularly from the aspects of software-hardware co-design and electronic design automation (EDA), as well as their applications to embedded, IoTs, smart medical and intelligent Cyber-Physical Systems. 

Wen received his MS degree in communication engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing China in 2010, and his PhD degree in computer engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2015. 

NSF CAREER awards are the most prestigious NSF awards that support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the mission of their organizations.

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